Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I actually think the Primordial Trolls haven't appeared yet and will be a part of the Emerald Dream/Lifelands. They have a weird affinity for Wild Gods and Arcane, two things that Elune dabbles in often, and while they are always attributed to ancient Azeroth we don't KNOW if they are truly from Azeroth to begin with.

Isn't it odd that Ulderoth mentions the Yaungol but nothing about Trolls? And that the Zandalari have scales on them, implying they evolved from something else?

Of course their ancestors could just be Drogbar but IDK.

I wish they'd just push more towards the playable races having actual azeroth origins then...*Curse of flesh*.

[Skildar]

Why do you assume the "Heretics" from Avaloren Odyn talked about are evil?

What wow really needs are not evil doers but foes everywhere. We always have the resistance story, where we go to a place, meet the nice fellows and fight off the evil bads.

If we could have an expansion where everyone we meet is a selfish people in a sense but not evil there we could have worthwhile stories to be told

[Cheezits]

He wears Kyrian armor.

I think that's just Ukraine colors.

[Foolicious]

I suppose that can't be ruled out. Neat idea!

I just think the bits about the prisoners and infighting amongst themselves sounds an awful lot like the heretics are Void-aligned. Why would emancipated Titanforged fight among themselves? And why would fighting them compromise the Old Gods' prisons? And would there really be so many of them that Odyn and his forces would meet such a strong resistance, as described in the text?

Odyn didn't run into troubles because there are so many of them. For one we don't know the size of the expeditions he sent, but it doesn't sound like an army. And we only know that they have superior defenses. It didn't sound like they have met in battle. Parts washing up on the shores of kalimdor also suggests they never made it on land, but where destroyed while still on sea. In subnautica for example there is one small building that guards almost half of the planet.
The nightsquall also talks about magic storms and monsters west of kalimdor that make it impossible to sail too far west.
My guess would be that Avaloren is simply protected by either magic or a powerful titan facility. Could be that there are only a handful of titanforged that defend the island/continent that way.

[Ameonna]

Next expac gonna be on Azshara and the nagas. Called it.

[huth]

I think the children of the first flesh could be referring to the Djaradin

It has to be referring to something that is already happening

Possible. Though that would put the identity of the Harbinger into much more question. It doesn't look like the Djaradin where contacted by any direct Void or Old God agent, at least not the ones we've met so far.

[Lady Atia]

It's not just the colors, the style is clearly Kyrian.

The pet entry also says "Cats go to Revendreth, Dogs to Bastion" and also listens the pet as a Shadowlands pet (lol).

[Auxis]

And to be honest, I was hoping the idea that by accident we pulled a different Old God from the past to the present and then they messed with the future. (Based on that one quest with Chromie where we ended up in Ny'alotha and an Old God was whispering to us.)

Not N'zoth, Not C'thun, Not Yogg Saron... but Y'shaarj. (We didn't fight him in original state, we only fought the remnants of his body from the Sha or his Heart, but we never fought him directly.) And he's supposed to be the most strongest of the bunch.

I think they'd need a big enough rift to accommodate Yshaarjs mass to bring it through time. It was planned to require the WoE to bring Sargy through to Azeroth, I'm sure the logistics would be similar for chronological portals?

[Kiivar86]

The pet entry also says "Cats go to Revendreth, Dogs to Bastion" and also listens the pet as a Shadowlands pet (lol).

Hm. Between this and the cat seemingly having no other place of origin, makes me wonder if it can give us any sort of idea of what may've been cut from Shadowlands.

[Lady Atia]

Hm. Between this and the cat seemingly having no other place of origin, makes me wonder if it can give us any sort of idea of what may've been cut from Shadowlands.

I'm quite sure we will see the cat next patch in the Emerald Dream tbh. But yeah, it's interesting because the kodo pet was also marked as "Shadowlands" pet. Makes me wonder if they have a big backlog that they now can use for trading post and promotions.

[Kiivar86]

I'm quite sure we will see the cat next patch in the Emerald Dream tbh. But yeah, it's interesting because the kodo pet was also marked as "Shadowlands" pet. Makes me wonder if they have a big backlog that they now can use for trading post and promotions.

That's where I'm expecting it, but you never know.

edit: Oh I didn't know about the kodo pet, interesting.

Also can't wait to see what we get next month. I recall seeing that the themed titles for the next few months were found. I'm just waiting for that broom mount!

[Lady Atia]

That's where I'm expecting it, but you never know.

edit: Oh I didn't know about the kodo pet, interesting.

Also can't wait to see what we get next month. I recall seeing that the themed titles for the next few months were found. I'm just waiting for that broom mount!

Themed titles? What do you mean?

Broom mount will be via trading post it seems btw.

[Skildar]

I think telling a story of people who are simply different from us, but no better or worse, is right up Blizzard's alley right now.

I say this in good faith and without a single drop of homophobia in me, but they do seem to be building a very diverse team these days, with writers who like to inject their own experiences or points of view into the story. For example with the LGBTQ+ representation we've been seeing among NPCs lately.

I think they would love to challenge our notions of good and bad, right and wrong, normal and strange, etc. To show people who live just fine without being subjects of a King or Warchief. People who don't give a damn about Titans and Old Gods, or who see the good and the bad in both.

I think it would be interesting to see.

That said, 11.0 is supposed to be a big Void showdown. So I think it'll need some Void antagonists in it.

Finding a continent of people who are very disassociated from the main narrative and perhaps view the good guys as bad and vice versa, might feel very jarring and anticlimactic after years of build-up for this story.

It seems to me that the latest tracks of blizzard storytelling in World of Warcraft indicate the opposite. You are either a force for good and welcoming change, being open-minded, etc. or you are a force of destruction that refuses to adapt to a world that feels different than what you seek. There are no challenges to overcome in this world except to overpower or outsmart your foes. There are no discussions, no debates, no hunger, no poverty, no resource issues... maybe inside a few quests they will be mentioned but they are not part of the bigger challenge, the bigger challenge will always be in the kind of Zovaal, where whatever his motivations it is an evil manifestation that wants to destroy/enslave/corrupt everyone.

P.S.: the lgtq representation was too distracting and every romance you would witness on the dragon isles is a gay one. By principle I'm against romance stories because they seldom serve the story and here it's definitely not serving anything else than saying "yep everybody's gay"...

[Kiivar86]

Themed titles? What do you mean?

Broom mount will be via trading post it seems btw.

Basically each month has a sort of "theme", as I understand it. Its what the month is called, basically. Someone found the ones for the upcoming months. I can't find it right now because Twitter and all (or X or whatever the fuck).

[Hitei]

That's such a reactionary answer. Shamanistic cultures do not boil down to "lol things just happen because nature". He would understand water is the specific thing causing the rockface to shrink. Not to mention you left out the reading thing; Trolls had a written language before elves did, and in fact Trolls had taught the other horde races how to understand the Alliance languages. No "get your politics out of my game" argument is going to fix that.

It's a clear case of the writer not knowing Warcraft lore and instead relying on rather orientalist & white-centric fantasy tropes instead.

It's not a reactionary answer, and you're strawmanning.

I didn't say shamanistic cultures boil down to "lol things just happen", and I do not care about politics being or not being in the game. I pointed out that the conceptualization of the phenomenon from one of the cultures is more intuitively derived and the other is more methodically derived.

Every human culture in the entirety of human history has experienced that their surrounding environment can get warm and get cool, that their are seasons (even mild ones), that rain or snow falls. That does not mean that every human culture in the entirety of human history has a version of the word "temperature". Because unlike the intuitive understanding of warm and cold, "temperature" is a more niche attempt to introduce methodology to the observation of the surrounding environment.

Many human cultures historically had very thorough understanding of the ocean currents and their directions and patterns. Pretty much none of them historically rationalized those currents things like "convection derived from density and temperature differences" or "coriolis force".

For a shamanistic culture, the elements are the elements. Wind and water wear down rock into dust and scatter it, fire births new rock, the rocks shape the wind and water. That doesn't mean they also have a word, "erosion" to refer specifically to the individual process of wind and water wearing down rock, that is simply how water and earth interact. You are misconstruing not designating a thing and not understanding it. Every person can pretty intuitively understand that a light thing floats in water and a heavy thing sinks. Having the term "bouyancy" and rationalizing it as an upward exerting force at odds with the downward weight of an object is secondary and unnecessary. Not every language has a word for it. It's extra. Fluff.

Trolls had a written language before elves did, and in fact Trolls had taught the other horde races how to understand the Alliance languages.

The region of China has had a written language for more than three thousand years. Prior to 1950 and the communist party's educational reforms, the literacy rate in China was somewhere under 20%.

Historically having an long-standing writing system and a current specific population of that same group not teaching reading and writing are not contradictory elements. As I pointed out in the first post, ancient languages were often the domain of people with a need to record keep or disseminate information. The Zandalari and Gurubashi were/are prideful empires who want to last forever and keep their glories written in stone, they want to hand down writs, they want to immortalize kings. The Darkspear are a practical group of shamans, shadow hunters and warriors. They spent most of their early history as a tribe fighting famine and at war with other tribes, and then their more recent history focused on protecting themselves and their allies from shit like the Naga and Human forces.

It is entirely reasonable that they don't bother teaching young Darkspear to read and write. It's of little practical value to a small island tribe that has spent most of their history at arms. That doesn't mean every Darkspear is illiterates, it doesn't mean they don't have a written language with a history thousands of years old. It means that not every young Darkspear is taught to read or write, or cares about learning to when growing up.



But this is pointless and not particularly relevant to speculation. The actual problem with the book for this thread is that it's held in limbo because so many elements of the world are in a questionable state. It isn't clear what is going on with shit like the Orcs still occupying Night Elven land, or what problems that were resolved in Cata were actually eliminated and those enemies are just gone, and what groups were just beaten back, and it's written to hedge bets instead of set down a new canonical state. It was unfortunately meant to just be a book with tidbits about some things here and there, not an atlas of the current geopolitical landscape.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I don't know. We're seeing lots of lore surrounding the nature of the Titans and the Void lately. Alexstrasza listening to Vyranoth, etc.

I see what he's seeing to but pandering happens(I don't like it either). That said Alexstraza being something other then announcer is always appreciated. Her dialogue with Vyranoth was good. I WANT to see the aspects involved in the narrative then absent.

[Ameonna]

I think they'll play a big role in 11.0, but I don't think it'll be JUST them.

Sure not just them, i just say they will be a big part of it and expac will be about it in some ways.

[Skildar]

I see what he's seeing to but pandering happens(I don't like it either). That said Alexstraza being something other then announcer is always appreciated. Her dialogue with Vyranoth was good. I WANT to see the aspects involved in the narrative then absent.

very true, I've seen the video from here but haven't found it in game though. maybe I should check on Alextrasza at the top of Valdraken

[Marlamin]

I think that's just Ukraine colors.

The pet was made in 2020, so that wasn't something they kept in mind making it.

[Revamp Man]

Possible. Though that would put the identity of the Harbinger into much more question. It doesn't look like the Djaradin where contacted by any direct Void or Old God agent, at least not the ones we've met so far.

They made a deal to gain their power
I'm going to speculate that the deal was with Xal
She's trying to regain power and I'm ready for it