Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Wangming]

What should have been:

BFA:
8.0 Kul Tiras + Zandalar
Ghuun final boss

8.1 Crestfall + Zul'dare
Final boss: Horde V Alliance fleet battle. With Jaina as the actual boss (retreats at 5% like in BFA)

8.2 Undermine
Final boss: Gallywix

8.3 Hiji + Tel'abim (Jinyu + Hozen allied race)
Rastakhan final boss in Zandalar. No scuffed alliance retreat which means mekkatorque isnt mortally wounded so we can skip Mechagon.
Alliance naval superiority means Horde suffers a major blow in 4th war. No peace. No siege of orgrimmar 2.0 and no kumbaya. Horde on the run.

Note: All throughout this expansion, Sylvanas does questionable stuff as Warchief. After losing the war, the other Horde leaders blame her for the loss, accusing her of sometimes intentionally sending troops to their death to raise additional forsaken. They take away her warchief status and give it back to Thrall. Seeing as they've just lost a major war, they still need eachother, so the Forsaken are still allowed to remain within the horde.


Nazjatar expansion instead of SL. Alliance ships chasing horde -> Entry to Nazjatar goes as in original 8.2. Including the bringing along of Xal dagger.
9.0 Nazjatar (continent sized, multiple zones, no Zin-Aszhari yet)
OG naga character final boss (go wild)

9.1 Balor + Abyssal maw (underwater) raid
Ozumat controlled Neptulon final boss (not killed)


9.2 Zin Azshari (partly underwater zone)
Azshara final boss (doesn't die like in BFA).

Note: Xal gains body during this expansion. Due to circumstances Alliance and Horde forced to work together once more. At the end a tenuous pact is reached, but no all out peace. Internal disagreements in Alliance about this pact instead of finishing off Horde.

10.0 Dragonflight: Unfolds mostly as it went, altho instead of Dragonscale expedition the Horde vs Alliance aspect here is Explorers league vs Reliquary. But mostly still focused on exploration, dragon aspects and incarnates.
Raszageth final boss

11.1 Zaralek Cavern
Sarkareth final boss

11.2 Vakthros (interior + some kind of frosty realm)
Fyrakk final boss

Prologue: Dalaran destroyed by Xal without help of Nerubians. Panic instead caused by violent infighting, due to panic through closeness to Ny'alotha.
11.0 Khaz Algar (Undersea instead of Azj Kahet as 4th zone. Fully underwater 'skyriding'). Khaz Algar has a different place on the map (closer to Eastern Kingdoms)
Ozumat final boss (in the Undersea)

10.1 Rootlands (Emerald Dream foreshadowing)
OG massive plant creature final boss (go wild)

10.2 Ny'Alotha
N'zoth final boss

Note: As the creator of the Nightmare, N'zoths death triggered something in the Nightmare/dream, leading us to the next expansion.

11.0 Emerald Dream
OG cosmic life character (go wild)

11.1 Shadowlands (1 zone, could be a mix of all 4, just 1 of them, take your pick. Includes Tazavesh as hub. Ethereal/Broker connection discovered)
Zovaal final boss (no weird "I planned everything that ever happened shenanigans". Just a prisoner turned boss in his own realm. Hinted that deal with Sylvanas was made, but nothing came of it. No direct connection to Lich King or Kelthuzad)

11.2 K'aresh (same as current)
Dimensius final boss <-- we are here.

Note: This expansion basically goes: We fuck up life realm -> death realm gets stronger and sees its chance -> Death realm needs to be fucked up -> Void sees its chance with death weakened

I'd gladyl take continent sized Naz'jatar and Emerald Dream, Ny'alotha as an actual place and the adjusted Zovaal over the crap we got.

[Capivara]

What should have been:

8.3 Hiji + Tel'abim (Jinyu + Hozen allied race)
Rastakhan final boss in Zandalar. No scuffed alliance retreat which means mekkatorque isnt mortally wounded so we can skip Mechagon.
Alliance naval superiority means Horde suffers a major blow in 4th war. No peace. No siege of orgrimmar 2.0 and no kumbaya. Horde on the run.

i want to ook people in the dooker so much that if we had this, i would re-sub wow for life lol

do you think we have any real chance to really get hozen and jinyu?

[Wangming]

i want to ook people in the dooker so much that if we had this, i would re-sub wow for life lol

do you think we have any real chance to really get hozen and jinyu?

Sadly, unlikely.

MoP would have been a perfect opportunity of course. But The Monkey King also showed up in Legion and BfA. The latter even showing a new kind of Hozen.
Hell, in BfA we returned to Pandaria.

If these opportunities weren't taken, I doubt any moment would be the right moment.

But I'd gladly be wrong. Hozen, Jinyu, even the Mogu would be pretty cool as playable races.

[Alanar]

I resubbed but i hardly feel any excitement to play much after i did the available story chapters on k'aresh, phase diving aint that interesting. plenty of bugs.

I think that i have my excitement "reserved" for the Midnight reveals and upcoming Legion remix, that makes this last big patch feel very bland in comparison.

Ye sadly the Patch isnt all that interesting I agree. Outside of the usual raid, it just feels empty, boring idk, no real motivator. I mean I like the Ethereals, but this isnt it for me. Just the same old, same old stuff.

Also this cloak, great.. another one of those, upgrade it blabla. I just dont care, we done this so many times already.

[Enrif]

Do you ever think about just committing to a different game more suited to you instead of endlessly throwing out ideas for how to completely ruin this one?

ah the age old "your ideas ruin the game", how original. You know people can have different opinions of what would make the game better, and just because you don't like them or don't understand them, doesn't mean it ruins anything.

[Capivara]

Sadly, unlikely.

MoP would have been a perfect opportunity of course. But The Monkey King also showed up in Legion and BfA. The latter even showing a new kind of Hozen.
Hell, in BfA we returned to Pandaria.

If these opportunities weren't taken, I doubt any moment would be the right moment.

But I'd gladly be wrong. Hozen, Jinyu, even the Mogu would be pretty cool as playable races.

when we had mists of pandaria remix i really thought they would give us. but maaybe if we have a bfa remix they can add some "new content" since the monkey king are there for literally zero reason.

i can only dream lol

[Joshuaj]

What should have been:

BFA:
8.0 Kul Tiras + Zandalar
Ghuun final boss

8.1 Crestfall + Zul'dare
Final boss: Horde V Alliance fleet battle. With Jaina as the actual boss (retreats at 5% like in BFA)

8.2 Undermine
Final boss: Gallywix

8.3 Hiji + Tel'abim (Jinyu + Hozen allied race)
Rastakhan final boss in Zandalar. No scuffed alliance retreat which means mekkatorque isnt mortally wounded so we can skip Mechagon.
Alliance naval superiority means Horde suffers a major blow in 4th war. No peace. No siege of orgrimmar 2.0 and no kumbaya. Horde on the run.

Note: All throughout this expansion, Sylvanas does questionable stuff as Warchief. After losing the war, the other Horde leaders blame her for the loss, accusing her of sometimes intentionally sending troops to their death to raise additional forsaken. They take away her warchief status and give it back to Thrall. Seeing as they've just lost a major war, they still need eachother, so the Forsaken are still allowed to remain within the horde.


Nazjatar expansion instead of SL. Alliance ships chasing horde -> Entry to Nazjatar goes as in original 8.2. Including the bringing along of Xal dagger.
9.0 Nazjatar (continent sized, multiple zones, no Zin-Aszhari yet)
OG naga character final boss (go wild)

9.1 Balor + Abyssal maw (underwater) raid
Ozumat controlled Neptulon final boss (not killed)


9.2 Zin Azshari (partly underwater zone)
Azshara final boss (doesn't die like in BFA).

Note: Xal gains body during this expansion. Due to circumstances Alliance and Horde forced to work together once more. At the end a tenuous pact is reached, but no all out peace. Internal disagreements in Alliance about this pact instead of finishing off Horde.

10.0 Dragonflight: Unfolds mostly as it went, altho instead of Dragonscale expedition the Horde vs Alliance aspect here is Explorers league vs Reliquary. But mostly still focused on exploration, dragon aspects and incarnates.
Raszageth final boss

11.1 Zaralek Cavern
Sarkareth final boss

11.2 Vakthros (interior + some kind of frosty realm)
Fyrakk final boss

Prologue: Dalaran destroyed by Xal without help of Nerubians. Panic instead caused by violent infighting, due to panic through closeness to Ny'alotha.
11.0 Khaz Algar (Undersea instead of Azj Kahet as 4th zone. Fully underwater 'skyriding'). Khaz Algar has a different place on the map (closer to Eastern Kingdoms)
Ozumat final boss (in the Undersea)

10.1 Rootlands (Emerald Dream foreshadowing)
OG massive plant creature final boss (go wild)

10.2 Ny'Alotha
N'zoth final boss

Note: As the creator of the Nightmare, N'zoths death triggered something in the Nightmare/dream, leading us to the next expansion.

11.0 Emerald Dream
OG cosmic life character (go wild)

11.1 Shadowlands (1 zone, could be a mix of all 4, just 1 of them, take your pick. Includes Tazavesh as hub. Ethereal/Broker connection discovered)
Zovaal final boss (no weird "I planned everything that ever happened shenanigans". Just a prisoner turned boss in his own realm. Hinted that deal with Sylvanas was made, but nothing came of it. No direct connection to Lich King or Kelthuzad)

11.2 K'aresh (same as current)
Dimensius final boss <-- we are here.

Note: This expansion basically goes: We fuck up life realm -> death realm gets stronger and sees its chance -> Death realm needs to be fucked up -> Void sees its chance with death weakened

I fw all of this except for the final one lol (and some of the DF stuff ig)

SL is just fine as its own expansion, and I'm ngl, your last expansion idea sounds more rushed than what Blizzard's actually done.

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I won't lie, another reason for why SL failed imo is the fact it suffered from WoD syndrome, AKA some plots were just cut for the sake of convenience.

The literal biggest evidence of this is Thros. I know for a fucking fact that shit was going to occur in SL. Ofc I can't directly prove it, but based off what was implied in BFA, there's literally no way it wasn't.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Ye sadly the Patch isnt all that interesting I agree. Outside of the usual raid, it just feels empty, boring idk, no real motivator. I mean I like the Ethereals, but this isnt it for me. Just the same old, same old stuff.

Also this cloak, great.. another one of those, upgrade it blabla. I just dont care, we done this so many times already.

Don't even get me start on the cloak, i did all world activities etc and got few cloak items, for the patch that doesn't even need a cloak, it's always annoying when they do this.

But like you said too, it's yet another cloak "legendary" to upgrade, so innovative...

[Joshuaj]

However, unless they have us explore it in a later expac, imma just assume we went there lore-wise, the same way imma assume we went to Farahlon in WoD lore-wise, despite us not going there in game.

Is it headcanon? Of course it is. Do I care? Nope. I mean, it's not like I'd be making up stuff that retcons established lore for the sake of said headcanon, yeah?

[Makorus]

Don't even get me start on the cloak, i did all world activities etc and got few cloak items, for the patch that doesn't even need a cloak, it's always annoying when they do this.

But like you said too, it's yet another cloak "legendary" to upgrade, so innovative...

I mean, the only thing that gives cloaks is Visions and Flames Radiance, because they are technically S2 content. Maybe the Weekly Chests, but I haven't heard anyone actually get cloaks from it.

No S3 content gives you cloaks, there's literally none of them on the loot tables.

I think you are fibbing a bit.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I mean, the only thing that gives cloaks is Visions and Flames Radiance, because they are technically S2 content. Maybe the Weekly Chests, but I haven't heard anyone actually get cloaks from it.

No S3 content gives you cloaks, there's literally none of them on the loot tables.

I think you are fibbing a bit.

Not fibbing a bit, i got explorer cloaks and one adventurer cloak. Did all the weekly chests and activities like theater etc.

I don't remember if i got any from k'aresh activities, but i sure got some overall after doing all the world content besides delves, m+ and pvp.

[Lazrec]

Hozen showing up in the ranks of the Kor’kron Vanguard in BFA was definitely an interesting inclusion, but it seems they used it mostly as a small lore morsel to show they’re still along for the ride versus developing them into a functional part of the Horde we can tap into.

I’d imagine they’ll never be playable, sans maybe a *drastic* model rework (breaking half the charm) and maybe some crazy Gorloc-level “advanced” culture of them we eventually discover on Tel’abim or something, hah. That would be kind of a waste after we already have an entire batch of them allied up with the Horde collecting dust, but who knows what their plans are?

Granted, if they want us to drop the idea of them ever being playable then sweeping their involvement under the rug would make better sense than occasional reminders that they have an ongoing presence with teases like that.

I’m always down for new or unusual rigs for us to play with, so if they can ever make oddball options like that fit in sensibly I’d love to see them go for it. I’m still super bummed that Sethrak weren’t sorted out for us to play like Vulpera were, especially given their unique aesthetic, audio, and lore all making them an intriguing package to mix things up. They’re fun to play as using the spire toy even without a full kit of animations loaded (would love to see their jump ironed out to be an interesting serpentine movement).

Same for Naga which I’ve wanted since WC3 - I’d even be on board with having Azshara stick around as their racial leader who constantly sasses us but rather enjoys our usefulness and gives us a leader with some fangs who is much more of a chaotic-neutral, wildcard character to keep things exciting. I wrote much more on this idea in the official forums but won’t get into it here - just a fun idea imo to spice things up now that we’re hitting a wall of “same-ideology syndrome” that’s starting to water down our cast of late.

Anyway, rather than risk derailing this thread back into arguments over what is/isn’t logical (despite Blizzard having free will to make whatever is cool enough happen if they so choose), I’ll just say that as far as speculation goes I do agree that Ethereals seem *heavily* stacked as our next surprise option. If all this setup turns out to lead otherwise it’s an absolute miss of an easy win, not to mention way too many pieces were developed in that direction if that wasn’t the intent here.

Same for VE/3rd DH spec - they know stuff like that only fuels louder calls for giving us that content, so if they don’t have actual plans to implement them then teasing the idea is an agonizing misstep imo.

It seems way more apparent to me that these are all fun additions they’re prepping and naturally being evasive about revealing too soon, as others have mentioned. Definitely banking on those being revealed at Gamescom as our end-of-TWW goodies. Hopefully we won’t end up disappointed.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

It seems way more apparent to me that these are all fun additions they’re prepping and naturally being evasive about revealing too soon, as others have mentioned. Definitely banking on those being revealed at Gamescom as our end-of-TWW goodies. Hopefully we won’t end up disappointed.

I have special murloc socks ready for the reveal, i hope they will keep close to the promise of "blowing our socks off" with their new features, unless it all meant already revealed housing system.

[milkmustache]

However, unless they have us explore it in a later expac, imma just assume we went there lore-wise, the same way imma assume we went to Farahlon in WoD lore-wise, despite us not going there in game.

Is it headcanon? Of course it is. Do I care? Nope. I mean, it's not like I'd be making up stuff that retcons established lore for the sake of said headcanon, yeah?

I think if Thros replaced Korthia or Zereth Mortis (I know we'll disagree there), Shadowlands would have been infinitely better. It's another Rootlands situation. Clearly hinting at it throughout the expansion, yet dropped and not mentioned again with an obvious gap.

I think it could've been a really cool theme to follow and maybe replace one of the other realms, that way it wasn't so intense meeting 4 brand new OC groups right off the bat.

Hozen showing up in the ranks of the Kor’kron Vanguard in BFA was definitely an interesting inclusion, but it seems they used it mostly as a small lore morsel to show they’re still along for the ride versus developing them into a functional part of the Horde we can tap into.

I’d imagine they’ll never be playable, sans maybe a *drastic* model rework (breaking half the charm) and maybe some crazy Gorloc-level “advanced” culture of them we eventually discover on Tel’abim or something, hah. That would be kind of a waste after we already have an entire batch of them allied up with the Horde collecting dust, but who knows what their plans are?

I've always wondered if the reason that Alliance never got Jinyu as an allied race was because Hozen, as their natural counterpart, failed to stack up properly. It'd have been odd to enter Nazjatar and have the Alliance get Jinyu, Horde get Gilgoblins, so that wouldn't have worked either. Hozen are a really fun and compelling group, but when it comes down to it they're just poop joke monkeys.

[Wangming]

Hozen showing up in the ranks of the Kor’kron Vanguard in BFA was definitely an interesting inclusion, but it seems they used it mostly as a small lore morsel to show they’re still along for the ride versus developing them into a functional part of the Horde we can tap into.

--and other stuff--

NGL just the chance of the Monkey King being a racial leader and being there in Horde Council meeting is enough for me to want playable Hozen. He is a bigger troll than the...well, Trolls. It does explain why he hangs out in Zandalar though.

[Joshuaj]

I think if Thros replaced Korthia or Zereth Mortis (I know we'll disagree there), Shadowlands would have been infinitely better. It's another Rootlands situation. Clearly hinting at it throughout the expansion, yet dropped and not mentioned again with an obvious gap.

I think it could've been a really cool theme to follow and maybe replace one of the other realms, that way it wasn't so intense meeting 4 brand new OC groups right off the bat.



I've always wondered if the reason that Alliance never got Jinyu as an allied race was because Hozen, as their natural counterpart, failed to stack up properly. It'd have been odd to enter Nazjatar and have the Alliance get Jinyu, Horde get Gilgoblins, so that wouldn't have worked either. Hozen are a really fun and compelling group, but when it comes down to it they're just poop joke monkeys.

I simply think SL was meant to be 3 patches, similar to BFA and Legion.

9.0- Nathria
9.1- Thros
9.2- Sanctum
9.3- Sepulcher

This just makes perfect sense.

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The Rootlands at least has the excuse of likely being saved for a future expac in the Worldsoul Saga.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I don't know if it was datamined a long time ago and shared already, but someone on reddit found these icons related to bloodqueen transmog, i guess reward for this vampire event people were talking about?

[Lady Atia]

I don't know if it was datamined a long time ago and shared already, but someone on reddit found these icons related to bloodqueen transmog, i guess reward for this vampire event people were talking about?

We already found that some time ago, and yes, we guess it's for the vampires survivors game mode.

[Thros]

I simply think SL was meant to be 3 patches, similar to BFA and Legion.

9.0- Nathria
9.1- Thros
9.2- Sanctum
9.3- Sepulcher

This just makes perfect sense.

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The Rootlands at least has the excuse of likely being saved for a future expac in the Worldsoul Saga.

I heard someone is searching for my home?

But in all seriousness, there is still a chance for Thros to appear, as it's part of the void and emerald dream as well, so if not in the next, perhaps in the life focused expansion.

[Joshuaj]

Voidforged Overseer bio:

> "After the Sepulcher of the First Ones was opened, this construct of the First Ones was stolen by the brokers and sold to the ethereals in a transaction at the Veiled Market. Under the ethereals' ingenious modifications, it integrated the mysteries of the Aether, gliding through the air with extraordinary elegance, leaving behind a trail of shimmering stardust".

It's NOT a Zereth Umbra thing like I originally assumed. It's just a Zereth Mortis Overseer that was modified by the Ethereals. This makes more sense considering the current lore. Also cool how the First Ones are still being mentioned

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I heard someone is searching for my home?

But in all seriousness, there is still a chance for Thros to appear, as it's part of the void and emerald dream as well, so if not in the next, perhaps in the life focused expansion.

I am. Lemme in the Blighted Lands, cowards!