Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Darkarath]

They could just revamp the entire Kalimdor + EK in Midnight. Problem solved guys.
#teamworldrevamp

Now we are talking.

I support your attitude World Revamp Brother.

[Makorus]

Same. That's why I hope MD is just Quel'Thalas and they will start building on this map, we could have separate expansions for Lordaeron, Khaz Modan, southern EK, northern and southern Kalimdor. Far better than inventing new island from hat every 2 years.

Of course we could have something like Avaloren from time to time. But to all people who want 2+ expacs on Avaloren - just remember how community reacted to 11.0 "leaks" right after Dragon Isles - only perspective on QT/Northrend and Metzen charisma salvaged hype.



Different scale. Current QT is smaller than 1 modern zone, future one will be full continent. Also it's doing pointless job twice - now you have to sew new QT and old EK together, sooner or later we will have new EK anyway.

That's why what I propose is much simpler - just make new QT map, now it will be behind loading screen like 'outland' one, in the future it will serve as foundation for Lordaeron remake.

They can also just attach it to the current EK, and then attach it to the new EK in like 10 years when they actually have a world revamp.

Loading screens are so bad. It's World of Warcraft not Loading Screen of Warcraft. Just takes all the immersion out of it being one connected world.

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They could just revamp the entire Kalimdor + EK in Midnight. Problem solved guys.
#teamworldrevamp

Real talk, I am still not 100% convinced that isn't happening for Midnight. Unlikely, but so was Housing.

[Raetary]

I don't see why Blizzard would bother gluing QT onto the EK map when keeping it instanced would be infinitely easier for them and doesn't arbitrarily constrain them to the limitations of the old map.

[huth]

None of that really has to do with a seamless world. In a hypothetical scenario where this was possible, you would still be able to teleport from EK to Kalimdor if you wanted. Or you fly across an open open to get there. The point of it being seamless is for immersion, not convenience.

The point is that nobody would actually use that option, making it a waste of resources. Same reason the world isn't remotely to scale, it would just add tedium for no real gain.

[Wangming]

Now we are talking.

I support your attitude World Revamp Brother.

But then, make it actually a World revamp. As in, revamp placed like Pandaria as well. We see the OG version in Classic, in Midnight we see the new one. What the hell, do Broken Isles and Kul Tiras as well.

[Makorus]

If we start with the "waste of resources" argument, we might as well get rid of most NPCs and mobs that aren't directly related to quests, because they add nothing. This is a corporate product with no soul. Have to auto-complete quests, queue for dungeons and be efficient!

[Xilurm]

But then, make it actually a World revamp. As in, revamp placed like Pandaria as well. We see the OG version in Classic, in Midnight we see the new one. What the hell, do Broken Isles and Kul Tiras as well.

I mean, those aren't really needed. Especially the Legion and BFA zones.

[Makorus]

I mean, those aren't really needed. Especially the Legion and BFA zones.

I mean, they aren't "needed", but having another world revamp that doesn't catch up all the continents would suck.

[Xilurm]

I mean, they aren't "needed", but having another world revamp that doesn't catch up all the continents would suck.

But what purpose would any revamped continents other than EK and Kalimdor serve? At least for those two they can turn them into new levelling zones as well with revamped starting areas.

[Nymrohd]

I mean, they aren't "needed", but having another world revamp that doesn't catch up all the continents would suck.

For me, everything from Pandaria and up is in good condition. Pandaria could use some upscaling but otherwise it is fine. Kalimdor, EK, Northrend and I guess Outland are the places that just look very dated and Northrend is getting updated so it is just Kalimdor and EK.
The problem remains of course that if Kalimdor and EK were designed to the scale zones have had since at least Legion, they'd need to have their surface areas quadrupled (at least doubled on each axis). And that is a tall order. Just improving the graphics like they did with Arathi Highlands would leave you with e.g. Lordaeron City being a smaller keep than Proudmore Keep in Boralus when it was the capital of by far the largest human nation and most villages and towns being 3-4 buildings compared to places like Brennadam and Corlain; Redridge, Sentinel Hill and Darkshire are supposed to be as large as Brennadam. And if you tried to do that for Kalimdor and EK, that requires level design effort of 6-8 expansions. So yeah, I just no longer see it happening. The could in theory move one of their current three teams to a world revamp but it would still take them 6+ years imo to do it justice.
And I would rather have Quel'thalas scaled a bit up so it looks like a proper country whose towns and villages have more than 4 buildings even if it means it has to stay instanced.

[COBRAstriker]

And yet, what the posters above you are suggesting would fix this issue and make in-world roleplaying a much better experience.

Not to toot my own horn here but I made a post on the official forums about this exact issue and it was surprisingly well received. People (probably people like you who see a certain word and get all scared about it) tried to burry it at the start but mods brought it back up.

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...cy-back/525761

TLDR: It's an RPG, bring back the RP aspect of it.

I didn't have the chance to reply to you, so I will share my thoughts on this and other potential features that one day may be in the game
Honestly, we wouldn't even have this silly discussion at a time when there are major issues with the new player experience, returning player experience, stories and cinematics being subpar, and many other, far more important issues plaguing the game, if Blizzard didn't erase genders from the character creator, and with that, gendered language
So why did they remove the option that 99%+ of people on this Earth prefer having, instead of expanding on what was already there? GW2, ESO, FF and many other MMOs and games still offer you M/F at the character creator and they do just fine in that department, not to mention that many of these games also offer far more customizations in terms of hair styles and what not than WoW does. WoW still makes you bald whenever you equip a head piece. Even BG3, which many like to bring up all the time, offers M/F when creating a new character. Not only that, but in that game, body types are actual body types - the physical shape and size of bodies are affected by the feature, they're not a cheap and performative replacement of genders
I think that in the long term, these types of decisions from Blizzard do far more harm than good. This, the 9.1.5 censorship patch, the preachy stories that are meant to lecture the players on things instead of good old fantasy storytelling that should intrigue the reader or allow them to form their own thoughts and feelings, among others. Blizzard is in the bad business of creating "problems", like implementing or changing things nobody asked for, and then offer their own shitty "solutions" to said problems so some on that team can justify their job title
For years they have neglected the story and setting of WoW, or outright worked to destroy it, so this constant performative virtue signaling and obnoxious self righteousness coated in excessive modernism stands out like a sore thumb, and it's repulsive to any regular player. It also gives those outside the game the impression that their priorities lie somewhere else, and not in the quality of the game, or customer satisfaction. And that applies to an extent to those that are still playing as well. We have so many unresolved bugs from years ago, or features long requested by a good chunk of the playerbase, like hats not making you bald, that they have yet to address, but they were very quick to change a whole slate of things in a single patch. Things that nobody really asked for, and nobody outside a very small group of overly and unreasonably sensitive people had an issue with in the first place
I wish Blizzard would have a rule to keep their games as a neutral ground, far away from every modern socio-political issue, and just offer their players what they want, memorable experiences, like they used to in the past..

[micwini]

Now we are talking.

I support your attitude World Revamp Brother.

They can also just attach it to the current EK, and then attach it to the new EK in like 10 years when they actually have a world revamp.

Loading screens are so bad. It's World of Warcraft not Loading Screen of Warcraft. Just takes all the immersion out of it being one connected world.

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Real talk, I am still not 100% convinced that isn't happening for Midnight. Unlikely, but so was Housing.

Socks off brothers. We settle for nothing less.

[Makorus]

For me, everything from Pandaria and up is in good condition. Pandaria could use some upscaling but otherwise it is fine. Kalimdor, EK, Northrend and I guess Outland are the places that just look very dated and Northrend is getting updated so it is just Kalimdor and EK.
The problem remains of course that if Kalimdor and EK were designed to the scale zones have had since at least Legion, they'd need to have their surface areas quadrupled (at least doubled on each axis). And that is a tall order. Just improving the graphics like they did with Arathi Highlands would leave you with e.g. Lordaeron City being a smaller keep than Proudmore Keep in Boralus when it was the capital of by far the largest human nation and most villages and towns being 3-4 buildings compared to places like Brennadam and Corlain; Redridge, Sentinel Hill and Darkshire are supposed to be as large as Brennadam. And if you tried to do that for Kalimdor and EK, that requires level design effort of 6-8 expansions. So yeah, I just no longer see it happening.
And I would rather have Quel'thalas scaled a bit up so it looks like a proper country whose towns and villages have more than 4 buildings even if it means it has to stay instanced.

Yeah, but the scale issue is why a "zone-by-zone" revamp that people are asking for is stupid.

If you do a whole continent at once, you can change the zone borders and shapes.

[Wangming]

I mean, those aren't really needed. Especially the Legion and BFA zones.

How do you know that? It is reasonable to assume the largest Void invasion to date will not stay contained in Quel Thalas. What is and isn't needed is what Blizzard decides.

Also I find the disjointed fucking mess of a timeline we have now, to be super irritating.

Belf and Draenei starting zones are stuck in TBC
Pandaren are stuck in MoP
The rest of the starting zones, Goblin and Worgen especially, are stuck in Cata.

By and large most of the Old World is acting all surprised that the Cataclysm knocked over a few buildings...over ten years ago.
The rest are stuck in time bubbles that don't reflect the multiple conflicts that happened there. Thankfully, exploring all the expansions is no longer mandatory for leveling, but that ads another problem. A new player can go from zero to the level cap, beat the most recent raid tier and adorn themselves in BoS items without even hearing about Draenor, despite multiple versions of it existing in the game.

The coherent present is only Exile's Reach, The Dragons Isles, and Khaz Algar

[huth]

Yeah, but the scale issue is why a "zone-by-zone" revamp that people are asking for is stupid.

If you do a whole continent at once, you can change the zone borders and shapes.

But doing a whole continent at once increases the workload to unmanageable levels, making it a poor value proposition. So all that achieves is lowering the chances of it happening at all.

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How do you know that? It is reasonable to assume the largest Void invasion to date will not stay contained in Quel Thalas. What is and isn't needed is what Blizzard decides.

They're not going to do it anyway. But if they did, they'd likely exclude most expansions that aren't immediately related to the content, just to keep the workload manageable.

[Wangming]

But doing a whole continent at once increases the workload to unmanageable levels, making it a poor value proposition. So all that achieves is lowering the chances of it happening at all.

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They're not going to do it anyway. But if they did, they'd likely exclude most expansions that aren't immediately related to the content, just to keep the workload manageable.

If only they had a roadmap of what's going to happen for three full expansion and behind the scenes do the work in advance. It's not like other dev teams had to recreate and entire MMO from scratch while half the team was still updating the old one. Oh wait..

[Xilurm]

How do you know that? It is reasonable to assume the largest Void invasion to date will not stay contained in Quel Thalas. What is and isn't needed is what Blizzard decides.

I mean, we're talking revamp or just a touch up? If it's anything like Cata or above then that seems physically impossible to achieve. That is a lot of environment and quests they'd have to make for a single expansion.

[Darkarath]

Ok let's do some cooking.

I think that most of us here agree with the idea that Blizzard will revamp, sooner rather than later, all EK and Kalimdor. This would create some problems even if they do them all at once. The timeline would be fucked up like in Cata times, but probably worse, as it is very unlikely that Blizzard would revamp both continents at the same time.

One way in which this could work is that new players start what IMO are the expansions of the WSS: DF (Dragon Isles) - TWW (Khaz Algar) - Midnight (All EK) - TLT (All Northrend) - 14.0 (All Kalimdor). I know that people focus a lot in new leveling experiences when revamping zones, but the fact is that almost no one level by questing these days, especially with events like Winds of Misterious Fortune and Turbulent Timeways. So Blizzard might cook something there, giving us maybe small questlines like the MQ of Khaz Algar, and then fill the revamped zones with rares and treasures, but being able to return to them when needed to add a Delve, Dungeon... What have you.

Another way is that Midnight gives us a new world map, keeping the Dragon Isles, Khaz Algar and the revamped EK zones. The Void invades us and the rest of the map is in darkness. This would give Blizzard the freedom to re-visit any zone whenever they feel like it. Old zones could go to CoT, but there is another option, Remix.

We all know that REMIX won't stop with Legion. It's just a fantastic system, and even a necessary one that allows both new and old players to play old expansions in a fun way while allowing sick collectors like me to get past mounts, pets, cosmetics, achievements... Eventually we might have almost an expansion for every month of the year:

- BC Remix.
- WotLK Remix.
- Cata Remix.
- WoD Remix.
- Legion Remix.
- BfA Remix.
- SL Remix.
- DF Remix.

They could even add a Classic Remix. Just make one of these Remix active every month of every few months and then Blizzard could revamp everything without caring about phasing issues, old zone versions and Bronze Dragons shitty system of going back in time.

[Hitei]

They can just add Quel'thalas to the Cataclysm EK map.

I don't see where this argument is coming from?

EK is a continent all to itself, increasing its size ~60-70% with that additional 60-70% being like 10 times more detailed is not a particularly smart way to keep a world server stable. It also makes for a very jarring sudden switch from slightly improved 2004 textures and models to 2025 ones when you fly over a mountain. It also just completely disrupts the entire look of a long established continent and throws every other kingdom out of scale when it's on the same map.

[Wangming]

I mean, we're talking revamp or just a touch up? If it's anything like Cata or above then that seems physically impossible to achieve. That is a lot of environment and quests they'd have to make for a single expansion.

I mean, nothing moved mountain ranges, so the environment could for the most part remain the same, with a few model updates here and there. But toppled buildings should be rebuilt and fires put out. Quite a few zones act like the Cataclysm was hours ago.