Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Enteroctopus Magnificus]

Actually, I want to pick up on something you mentioned-- man, would a third faction (maybe not playable, but existing in the world) be awesome. You make such a good point that most everyone is collatoral damage, especially during faction wars. If there was a larger group that stuck together to kind of just say "Fuck you guys, we're not taking this anymore", that'd be a ton of fun.

As cool as AU Draenor is in concept, I'll always be upset we missed out on the Mongrel Horde.

I've often talked about the third faction, but surprisingly, the opinions are generally rather negative. I don't really know why. I've always found this idea cool and logical. How come there aren't people who have united against them, as you say? There should be even more than 3.

[Wangming]

Actually, I want to pick up on something you mentioned-- man, would a third faction (maybe not playable, but existing in the world) be awesome. You make such a good point that most everyone is collatoral damage, especially during faction wars. If there was a larger group that stuck together to kind of just say "Fuck you guys, we're not taking this anymore", that'd be a ton of fun.

As cool as AU Draenor is in concept, I'll always be upset we missed out on the Mongrel Horde.

I don't want to say my expansion fan concept has the Darkmoon Faire as a third faction, but it totally has the Darkmoon Faire as a third playable faction.

And yes, the Mongrel Horde would have been cool, but it would have been wasted as an enemy for one expansion.
But imagine someone charismatic and powerful enough to say, I can protect you, join me if you are sick of these fuckers messing up the planet every few years.

[13last]

It doesn't matter, it's wrong and lazy. If you guys don't care about lore, not my problem. I do.

I don't think that's a good point. We're here because we're interested in where the game is heading and what's up lore wise. At least I am.

The more I think about it the more Magnificus has a point, it's a short that's meant to catch us up on the Amani and high elves. Don't think much of it until we get cinematics and reveals.

[Monkal]

It doesn't matter, it's wrong and lazy. If you guys don't care about lore, not my problem. I do.



Caring about lore is trolling now. Wonder why less and less people actually post on MMO-Champ anymore.

But it's not really lore...it's just a marketing piece. Chuck Norris does not in fact, allow us to live in Azeroth, yet the marketing piece showing him was one of the first Blizz ever did.

It's not productive to overthink it :-(

[Wangming]

I've often talked about the third faction, but surprisingly, the opinions are generally rather negative. I don't really know why. I've always found this idea cool and logical. How come there aren't people who have united against them, as you say? There should be even more than 3.

I suppose they are scared of what would happen to all the Battlegrounds. But there are ways to do that.

- In SWTOR Huttball just puts everyone in two teams regardless of factions
- FFXIV has three way battlegrounds for the three starting city states
- For Honor totally has three way duels. It's not the default, but it exists.

[Enrif]

Considering the AI prompt situation I am still surprised no one French Speaking has decided to debunk at all. I just still believe its just AI Prompts from the Third Party Social Media agency and it is not some sort of foreshadowing but who knows.

I mean I'd be ecstatic with High Elves and Amani so I am not opposed to it just surprised how this has been embraced without any debunk effort at all.

there was a german one too. so, that is confirmation

[milkmustache]

I've often talked about the third faction, but surprisingly, the opinions are generally rather negative. I don't really know why, but I've always found this idea cool and logical. How come there aren't people who have united against them, as you say? There should be even more than 3.

I'd have to imagine that the Arathi Empire holds the biggest potential for being the third opposing faction, but they've already backed them into a corner with the xenophobia it seems the Empire holds towards outsiders. It truly is surprising though that all of these other races, Vyrkul, Tuskarr, Jinyu, Hozen, Gnolls, unaffiliated Goblins, etc. have all just sort of kept apart. The only uniting factors seem to be the Venture Co. and various pirate groups.

(Side note there, I really dislike the handling of the Venture Co. in Undermined. They serve an incredible role as a permanent punching bag, and by giving them a de-facto leader who is looking to clean things up I think misses the entire point of their usage, and is just another example of Blizzard leaning on this crutch of every group's problems being easily solved.)

I don't want to say my expansion fan concept has the Darkmoon Faire as a third faction, but it totally has the Darkmoon Faire as a third playable faction.

And yes, the Mongrel Horde would have been cool, but it would have been wasted as an enemy for one expansion.
But imagine someone charismatic and powerful enough to say, I can protect you, join me if you are sick of these fuckers messing up the planet every few years.

Darkmoon as a third faction is an incredible idea. I wonder if we'll see anything else with the Darkmoon in Midnight with the whole Silas and Void ties. I sort of doubt it, and see it as a missed opportunity. But I think this kind of ties in with my idea about the Venture Co. too, it's fun to have these sort of aloof groups that have a permanent presence in the world. Hell, if the Darkmoon hired the Venture Co./Darkfuse as their private security firm or something along the lines, that'd be a really fun combination.

I really like your point of having a character unaffiliated with the factions that can extend a hand and offer something that we can't: protection from ourselves.

[Cheezits]

If there was a third faction, what about an Emperor/Azshara team-up? Teamed up to crush both factions to rule Azeroth.

[Enrif]

So why not use the ingame Amani model for example? Why Darkspear?

because they use "playable" models. So the hint would be "playable" high elf and amani.

[Makorus]

I mean, that's a bit of a reach.

[Joshuaj]

As long as we don't go to the moon.

- - - Updated - - -



But high elves are just blood elves. Few decades don't do much.

- - - Updated - - -



But how would a new UV for old model be any different than doing a new UV for a new model?

I wanna go to the moon though. That's literally what I'm basing my entire theory on, the idea that Midnight will take us to Azeroth's celestial bodies during its climax.

[Enrif]

It doesn't matter, it's wrong and lazy. If you guys don't care about lore, not my problem. I do.

dude, did you made the same hissy fits when they made advertisements with Mr.T, William Shatner, Ozzy and the others? This is basically a add. NOT a lore video or ingame cutscene.

[Wangming]

If there was a third faction, what about an Emperor/Azshara team-up? Teamed up to crush both factions to rule Azeroth.

Because they don't have the guts to do an evil playable faction. Hell, even in SWTOR the Sith Empire has characters that end up rebelling against their Emperor or the Dark Council because they just suck that much. But the Imperial Agent can straight up defect to the Republic. The truly irredeemably evil people are always the enemy.

[13last]

I suppose they are scared of what would happen to all the Battlegrounds. But there are ways to do that.

- In SWTOR Huttball just puts everyone in two teams regardless of factions
- FFXIV has three way battlegrounds for the three starting city states
- For Honor totally has three way duels. It's not the default, but it exists.

I'm torn on third faction, I feel like Blizzard is actively working on "combining" factions so to speak. It makes sense as nowadays the population of wow is nowhere near its peak and why stop people from playing with their friends because of a different faction. And Ion in the Nordic game conference interview 2 months ago mentioned they are slowly heading toward that way and it'll be irreversible.

I also would love the idea of a third faction or something like Horde/Ally vs another but I feel like for that to ever happen it would still need the third faction to be playable with Horde/Ally. Also what would you include in this third faction? I can see Blizzard messing around with the idea post worldsoul saga but I wouldn't bet on it during this saga.

[Khaza-R]

People are reading way too much into the social media post. The whole thing just strikes me as something hastily done. If they really wanted they could of used the forest troll skin that already skins for playable troll NPCs.

The only thing this points to is that the Amani will likely be a big part of the Midnight reveal and this is just to add context as to why they are suddenly not enemies unlike they've been every point in WoW until now.

[Cheezits]

Fun fact, there's another short that DOES use a png of an Amani model for a second (Arathi Highlands recap) so it's likely the Darkspear model was used for a reason- either as a hint, or because it was the main focus.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uFA4Ek2fX7E

[Wangming]

I wanna go to the moon though. That's literally what I'm basing my entire theory on, the idea that Midnight will take us to Azeroth's celestial bodies during its climax.

The only problem with that is, how do you top that for TLT?
I mean, since we came back to our timeline after the end of Wod, the final zones were...
Argus
Ny'alotha
Zereth Morthis
The Emerald Dream
K'aresh

If we go to Azeroth's moon to walk around it and chuckle at every pair of lone mountaintops because we are walking over Elune's youknowwhats, what will be the final zone of the Worldsoul Saga and the site of the climactic battle be?

The only place I can think of that people have been begging for since WotLK is Azjol-Nerub, but it doesn't have that cosmic feel that the others do.

[Cheezits]

The only thing this points to is that the Amani will likely be a big part of the Midnight reveal and this is just to add context as to why they are suddenly not enemies unlike they've been every point in WoW until now.

High Elf too. You could make an argument for it being a "white velf" but the Kirin Tor staff is too on the nose.

It's not even a Blood Elf vs Amani which would be the much more logical "argument" but instead it's High Elf and Amani pointing to heavy WC2 theming.

[Neoplanet]

This is something I keep coming back to. Amani will certainly be modeled off the Forest Troll model (in a modern sense), and will clearly be more than an allied race... but High Elves will most likely use the same Blood/Void Elf model with new customization.

It really feels like an incredible opportunity to do a character customization overhaul. I know it's tossed around a lot as an idea (particularly by myself), but it would solve so many problems especially going into Midnight.

i think they could try to give more differences by making some customizations like 2 hair colors and dferent jewely like dracthyr

[Timester]

dude, did you made the same hissy fits when they made advertisements with Mr.T, William Shatner, Ozzy and the others? This is basically a add. NOT a lore video or ingame cutscene.

They added a Night Elf mowahk just because the Mr. T ad. And none of those were promoting supposed lore introductions.