Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Eupitor]

Sooo... what's Varodoc's opinion on this?

[Sondrelk]

I think they can get away with stretching ghostlands/eversong by 10-20% West to East and can stretch as much as they want North to South. Silvermoon already has tons of space to expand; it had a huge empty quarter, the starting isle and is probably joined with Quel'danas for a truly bigger zone.

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I guess it is a difference of opinion. If it grounds me, I am turning it off as soon as I have the cosmetics I want.

I don't think feeling like you will want to turn it off once you have gained everything is really a mark against it. Most players don't redo challenges like Mage Tower and Delve bosses once they are defeated once. They get the rewards they want and move on.

Having the prey mechanic be a version of open world content that is more difficult by grounding you seems appealing to me. A version of the world that you will experience one, and then probably not again unless it offers something substantially different.

Could just be different strokes for different fools though. And personally, I cannot see much fun in a rare spawning in randomly for me to kill near instantly for a green BoE, or valorstones, or whatever.

[Lahis]

I think we are used to having a feature that is attached to talent/class system, even if tangentially. It was Hero Talents, the talent revamps, the borrowed power systems. Sure it was not specifically "New talents" but it was still an idea of class gameplay being expanded or at least modified.

"10 more levels with 10 Hero Talent Points!" would be rather pointless feature trailer slide.

[Civciv]

Sooo... what's Varodoc's opinion on this?

Oh he loves it, check his reddit account

[Marlamin]

I can't wait for the housing showcase tomorrow. Hopefully they show the exterior stuff a bit more, cause I'm still a bit confused by that.

Don't count on it. I fully expect the showcase and the demo to be limited to indoor customization only.

[Dvalin]

I hope they're still planning to update those old Void mobs, though... They really stood out like a sore thumb.

[Chickat]

The actual loss to gain ratio was a wash at best, though. I'm not falsely claiming anything. The point is people got tired of pruning and people got tired of temporary progression. DF and TWW added progression systems that aren't removed. That's where you are right now.

Midnight is the first expansion with no confirmed progression system clarified because we need to wait multiple days to get elaboration, something that has literally never happened before, since even Legion got a panel immediately after and wasn't consigned to a TGA-style opening night.

They said Hero Talents are evergreen. So mentioning them again is redundant. They didn't mention Delves, which are evergreen content. Guess what? Still 10+1 delves in.

If you rewound and had to wait to understand what Artifacts even were after multiple days, you could just as easily make the argument "I see Artifact Weapons, but what about abilities and levels?! I play this game for more than just gear, I like my character's abilities to progress too!"

Yeah the trailers would be 8 mins long if they announced everything the expansion will have like a new feature. Midnight is tww with housing, a new theme and some little things sprinkled in. Thats probably what we can expect every time now with evergreen features. Im mostly disappointed by how small Quel'thalas is. Thats all.

[Dracullus]

One thought cross my mind - if transmog is slot, not item based now, will we have more liberty about weapon slot?

[Sondrelk]

Ion literally says "You can get a preview of Covenant Abilities" in the playable demo right after the video though.

You might be right but I still see this as a vast misunderstanding of what players want. Who wants to bet they're scambling to add Ethereals as patch content over their ugly porcupine elves.

What I don't get is the inclusion of another underground zone.
Yes it was kinda neat for Zaralek, and having an expansion set mostly underground was a cool idea.
I just don't get why it seems like every expansion will have the dedicated underground zone. Rootlands for this one, and probably Harrowsdeep for TLT.

[Vakir]

Ion literally says "You can get a preview of Covenant Abilities" in the playable demo right after the video though.

Lmao, don't move the posts, we're talking about the posted Features Trailer. We're not talking about a presentation with commentary and followed by multiple fucking panels. Because the MULTIPLE FUCKING PANELS is what we're missing.

You might be right but I still see this as a vast misunderstanding of what players want. Who wants to bet they're scambling to add Ethereals as patch content over their ugly porcupine elves.

Haranir are a miss for me, there's no argument there.

My problem is when people say "patch content," which is hyperbolic bullshit, less features than WoD and SL, which is categorically wrong, and who are literally assuming there is no character progression at all.

Hero Talents were literally posed as an evergreen feature to expand on with even other hero class fantasies to be added in the future.

Case and point, we're getting a third DH spec.

That means they can't just have the same two hero specs exclusively, because the entire central idea is that there's two per base spec.

Which means there's going to probably be a third.

Which means there's a hero spec they didn't advertise.

Does that mean it doesn't exist because they didn't mention it? Or is there potentially the Occam's Razor that the game that has given some form of character-side progression (or temporary years long item-side bullshit) spontaneously doesn't have it - or maybe does?

[FossilFree]

One thought cross my mind - if transmog is slot, not item based now, will we have more liberty about weapon slot?

I hope that means we can transmog 1h over daggers, 1h over wands, wands over daggers, etc.

[Civciv]

What I don't get is the inclusion of another underground zone.
Yes it was kinda neat for Zaralek, and having an expansion set mostly underground was a cool idea.
I just don't get why it seems like every expansion will have the dedicated underground zone. Rootlands for this one, and probably Harrowsdeep for TLT.

I think they cut Rootlands patch and wanted to shove it in Midnight, not cohesive but whatever..

[Nymrohd]

There is this very powerful thing called the Worldsoul she is after. You might have heard of it.

So is everyone else, get in line. What does she want to do with it? Sargeras wanted to fuck it. Jailer wanted to use it as a battery. Aman'thul is grooming it for Order.

[Wyrt]

So, are they just going to make hero talents fatter or are they going to add alternative hero talents?

Because if they just make them fatter they're just going to run into the same problem they were trying to avoid by making them in the first place.

[Xilurm]

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/in.../1100-6534043/

In Midnight, Eversong Woods, Zul'Aman and Silvermoon City will finally be a part of the Eastern Kingdoms proper--no loading screen required. Players will be able to fly, walk, or ride directly to the new zones from anywhere in the Eastern Kingdoms.

"Most of the scars of the Scourge invasion have been healed," Hamilton said. "Time has passed. Blood Elves like their gardens tidy and their magical trees beautiful, so a lot of those scars have faded. Because we needed to do a transition from the forest into Zul'Aman proper, into an actual zone of Zul'Aman, we needed to expand there a little bit as well, because we needed room for the mountains to become mountainous without just suddenly being sheer, 'okay, now it's tall.' There was some size adjustment there, but the intent was to make the zone feel as recognizable as possible. Things are generally, relatively, proportionally in the places you expect them to be.

Silvermoon City itself is larger, Hamilton said, but will still include all the iconic parts of the city players know and love. There are also new additions, like the Sanctum of Light and a Memorial Garden. That all being said, it's also still very much a Horde city. While it will serve as the hub city for both the Horde and Alliance during Midnight, Alliance players will only be able to access certain parts of the city, with the rest of Silvermoon off-limits.

Ok this kinda stuff has me excited for the future too. Basically Eversong Woods and Ghostlands are one zone, almost the same size as before and you can enter it seamlessly from any part of Eastern Kingdoms, which honestly is fucking AMAZING.

It sounds to me that they took the place where Zul'Aman was, and made a path through the mountains for a proper zone.

Silvermoon is not a fully neutral city which is GREAT. I don't care what anyone says, this is immersion done right.

Anyway back to the first point, the fact that you can seamlessly go to the new zones from the older zones gives me more hope for world revamp. Now I actually believe that patch zones could be some of the old zones revamped.

[Nymrohd]

Btw what is wrong with WoWHead? I have never seen them so slow to add articles after an expansion reveal.

[Thomir]

So is everyone else, get in line. What does she want to do with it? Sargeras wanted to fuck it. Jailer wanted to use it as a battery. Aman'thul is grooming it for Order.

She wants to eat it.

[Chickat]

So, are they just going to make hero talents fatter or are they going to add alternative hero talents?

Because if they just make them fatter they're just going to run into the same problem they were trying to avoid by making them in the first place.

Hero talents are a miss to me. Id rather have regular talents added.

[Vakir]

So, are they just going to make hero talents fatter or are they going to add alternative hero talents?

Because if they just make them fatter they're just going to run into the same problem they were trying to avoid by making them in the first place.

See, these are the valid questions, not "WHERE'S MY SLIDE SAYING NEW ABILITIES???"

The smart thing would be to add maybe 2-3 gameplay enhancing capstones extending for each and re-assessing it every expansion if they need to consolidate them.

Hopefully it won't just be a new swappable one that potentially won't get used if it's undertuned each expac.

I also would prefer regular talents added, but it's an absolute nightmare eventually. The alternative to avoid insanity would be to limit the number of points you can put in a row so you can't take more higher-end capstones with your new points, and that would feel kinda unenjoyable.

[Nymrohd]

So, are they just going to make hero talents fatter or are they going to add alternative hero talents?

Because if they just make them fatter they're just going to run into the same problem they were trying to avoid by making them in the first place.

Why? That means one more optional throughput talent with a utility and a defensive optional. I would dearly hope they use them to flesh out the Hero Talent fantasy more and maybe add more unique SFX tied to them.