Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Raetary]

I like the content, but the patch is such a buggy mess.

My character is often stuck crouching for some reason.
The UI is all over the place and quest markers just don't disappear when done or don't update when moving to the next step.
I have had to skip so many treasures because the game just didn't let me open them, sometimes not even interact with at all.

[Wangming]

Universal, even.

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure all WoW players are human, and boy there's a reason all the Windrunners get with humans.

I'd prefer a victorian girl who appreciates a good mistery.

But I was never normal. And after years of therapy I am proud of it.

But yeah I still have to amit Aleria is hot. Especially with her new model that isn't just a palette swap of Syvalanas.

[Joshuaj]

just compare the sand from vol dun with karesh ? what is happening to the quality? kinda worried for more things but I keep my positivity high xD housing looks amazing and the setting in queltalas is almost not to mess up .... lets hope they dont mess it up...... speculating about the next xpac... even though I thought this is not possible with the current race / allied race system... I hope and think they will rework the allied races to be just skins

I'm gonna compare it to Vol'dun's sand in the day time LMAO

[Enrif]

Yes. The Radiant Song's spoken dialogue is explicitly labeled as being spoken by Azeroth. There's also internal material for the player that explicitly states that it's Azeroth.

Twists can exist but their misleading needs to make sense in the context of the fiction and that needs to be checked at the door when you're talking about the actual audience.

If there was a screen crawl at the beginning of The Usual Suspects that tells us with absolute certainty that Verbal Kint is not Keyser Soze, it would feel pretty fucking cheap for the twist to be that he is. You didn't surprise your audience, you just wasted their time.

There's ways to lie to the audience in universe if there's some liberty with the fourth wall - Season 2 of Mr. Robot comes to mind where Elliot lies to the viewer, because we are one of his alters.

But in this? Unless Xal'atath is personally shattering the fourth wall and manipulating the player? And developers? That ain't it, chief.

thats a dumb take.

Take example Havi and Odyn.

What does the text boxes say when you talk to Havi? Havi!, even though it is Odyn.

[Vakir]

thats a dumb take.

Take example Havi and Odyn.

What does the text boxes say when you talk to Havi? Havi!, even though it is Odyn.

Not only is Havi an alter ego of Odyn, he's misleading the player character directly, not the intermediary player controlling their character.

Also, probably the worst possible example, because Havi is literally Old Norse for High One referring to Odin. It's like being surprised that Iroquois Plisskin is Solid Snake. It's a fucking joke.

Similar with the spirit guide in one MoP quest actually being Emperor Shaohao.

Your opening cinematic is another story. The entire idea is we're an impartial observer of something we aren't actually present for (a conversation between Thrall and Anduin).

Optional subtitles designed primarily to assist people with a disability also isn't the same thing as a mandatory box that's identifying a character.

They could have called him "Mysterious Vrykul" but that wouldn't be as interesting. Meanwhile, they didn't need to identify the Radiant Song as Azeroth at all. Neither Thrall nor Anduin think it is at this point, so the only reason to label it is either because it is, or to lie to the audience.

And if you're gonna base your twist off lying to the audience, we can be here all day. Literally anything is possible. You can pull anything out of your ass. 2004 to 2025 is a mind control dream that Xal imprisoned our characters in and we're actually level 1 in our starting areas? You could suddenly argue that and anything else.

[Paula Deen]

I like how they did Karesh but I am really hoping it has a fourth quarter of the map that opens up in the epilogue or next patch. It really needs some more Ethereals, ironically enough.

I have a really spicy theory on why there are so few...but I want to wait till I am in better company to saw it as it can sound pretty negative.

[13last]

I have a really spicy theory on why there are so few...but I want to wait till I am in better company to saw it as it can sound pretty negative.

Come on don't keep up in suspense! My crazy theory is that after the epilogue or sometime in 11.2.5 we'll see something added to bottom left of the map.

[Paula Deen]

Come on don't keep up in suspense! My crazy theory is that after the epilogue or sometime in 11.2.5 we'll see something added to bottom left of the map.

Oh no. My theory is on whats currently there.

I have a theory that most of this expansion is reworked scrapped content.

Siren Isle - BFA
Undermine - BFA
K'aresh - SL

I have some reasons for thinking this, mostly revolving around elements still present in the game. I also think it makes sense if they were doing something else with all the artists...which they are. Housing and a potential revamp of at least part of the game.

[Enrif]

-snip-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq32kWgXNUw

Please read the subtitles. It says Drenden before it reveals the truth.

And with that, that discussion is over for me.

[Bwgmon]

Are we supposed to assume that Blizzard would label Azeroth's voice in the subtitles as "Xal'atath (pretending to be Azeroth)" if they were planning on making that particular twist? What?

[rainhard]

Spoiler: 

Spoiler: 

just compare the sand from vol dun with karesh ? what is happening to the quality? kinda worried for more things but I keep my positivity high xD housing looks amazing and the setting in queltalas is almost not to mess up .... lets hope they dont mess it up...... speculating about the next xpac... even though I thought this is not possible with the current race / allied race system... I hope and think they will rework the allied races to be just skins

Although this patch was a corner cutting one from the art department i do not think they dropped the quality of textures, after all if you make all sand the same how do zones differentiate, i think they just went with a different style of larger glassy sand dunes instead of the usual sand which i think fits the planets theme more anyways.

I also took better pictures for people to compare, you can see the liny parts of the karesh sand look fine too.

Spoiler: 

Spoiler: 

[13last]

Oh no. My theory is on whats currently there.

I have a theory that most of this expansion is reworked scrapped content.

Siren Isle - BFA
Undermine - BFA
K'aresh - SL

I have some reasons for thinking this, mostly revolving around elements still present in the game. I also think it makes sense if they were doing something else with all the artists...which they are. Housing and a potential revamp of at least part of the game.

Honestly I can buy it, I rewatched Metzens interview yesterday and when he mentioned joining in as creative lead the team already was working on TWW and he pitched the idea that they do a story over multiple expansions, and he specifically mentioned part 1 is War Within and it starts slow (Im sure they probably fit in Undermine because they always wanted to do it but story wise it's inconsequential imo, Dark Heart was the one factor that connected the story I think).

He stated that things are gonna ramp up considerably, hence the potential revamp of part of the game, unless they wait post WSS.

[Nightshade711]

Oh no. My theory is on whats currently there.

I have a theory that most of this expansion is reworked scrapped content.

Siren Isle - BFA
Undermine - BFA
K'aresh - SL

I have some reasons for thinking this, mostly revolving around elements still present in the game. I also think it makes sense if they were doing something else with all the artists...which they are. Housing and a potential revamp of at least part of the game.

The Siren Isle part is absolutely correct at a minimum. If I remember correctly the map file for it has been in the game since BfA.
(Unless I am getting different things mixed up)

[Nymrohd]

Btw I don't know how it's been for everyone else but Argent Dawn is a very populous realm normal and I have to say, I barely see people in K'aresh which is weird.

[Cheezits]

"Undermine is reworked BFA content" is insane to me.

K'aresh uses a lot of reused assets in 11.2 because of artist crunch for Midnight, including SL broker stuff, but that doesn't make it SL content.

Siren Isle is confirmed for a reused BFA map, yes.

[Hitei]

"Undermine is reworked BFA content" is insane to me.

Look man, the original plan was for the mid patch to be Nazjatar, Mechagon, and Undermine. Don't even worry about it.

[Mecheon]

Undermine wouldn't have even worked with BFA's tech, it relies on how they made Zaralek and that's absolutely Dragonflight content.

Siren Isle is, however, absolutely recycled content. It was a scraped island expedition

[milkmustache]

K'aresh 100% uses plants originally meant for the Rootlands along with reused Broker assets.

[Marlamin]

Btw I don't know how it's been for everyone else but Argent Dawn is a very populous realm normal and I have to say, I barely see people in K'aresh which is weird.

I think they turned up sharding to the max due to the lag US was experiencing on launch.

[Bwgmon]

K'aresh 100% uses plants originally meant for the Rootlands along with reused Broker assets.

It seems to me that they made use of what they had already conceptualized/designed before Metzen pushed for the next few expansions to be an interconnected saga.

By the time we get to the Rootlands, enough dev time will have passed that I wouldn't be surprised if the fauna there looks nothing like what they shunted to K'aresh, making it kind of like an actually-used version of the old "early Hellfire Peninsula" stuff that's hidden outside the Deadmines map.