Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Enexa von der Exodar]

And where does the Army of the Light suddenly come from? Like from where is the Sunwell summoning those soldiers? They certainly look humanoid tho I don't think they're from Hallowfall or any place we've ever seen. I wonder what entity is behind the Sunwell that received Liadrins prayers and then "answered" by summoning that army of the light like a DK summoning army of the dead... Could it be a powerful Naaru entity from beyond that is the driving force behind the Sunwell's light?

Velen once blessed the Sunwell using the heart of M'uru and I have a gut feeling that there's another Sunwell on the exact opposite side... think that could be Avaloren where they come from. A cloaked, light-infused Naaru city without any titan influence. Can imagine it being a future patch zone. Would also be a perfect opportunity to introduce the new Exodar and more story bits about the Naaru.

[Sondrelk]

It's still so weird that the more we learn about the Voidstorm, the more obvious it becomes that it was almost certainly originally envisioned as K'aresh. Prominent Ethereals presence. Void-blasted hellscape. Possibly out in space. Salhadaar as a boss fight, etc.

Every update just makes it more obvious that the WSS desperately needs a post-mortem documentary from the developers on what seems to have been quite the turbulent development.

[Dvalin]

One of these days people here will finally recognize haranir zone was supposed to be 11.2 early in tww development and they pivoted to K'areshi by borrowing midnight assets for ethereals and shadowlands assets for brokers and melded their species into one

In early plans? Sure. Midnight is probably a relatively new idea, which may not have been in the initial planning before Metzen came back (it seems 'returning to familiar places' is his idea). But you make it sound like K'aresh is a hastily put-together back-up plan, and there's of evidence on that, as it has lots of unique things going for it which I've mentioned earlier and you still don't seem to consider.

K'aresh has things Voidstorm hasn't, and vice versa. You also don't hastily put together an audio-drama, voice-actors, a whole raid (with new boss-models, architecture, end cinematic), music, etc. Even if it's light on assets like new mob-designs or geographic variety.

[Fahrad Wagner]

It's still so weird that the more we learn about the Voidstorm, the more obvious it becomes that it was almost certainly originally envisioned as K'aresh. Prominent Ethereals presence. Void-blasted hellscape. Possibly out in space. Salhadaar as a boss fight, etc.

Every update just makes it more obvious that the WSS desperately needs a post-mortem documentary from the developers on what seems to have been quite the turbulent development.

I can't help but share the same feeling, it does feel like it was meant to be part of K'aresh somehow.

[FossilFree]

Maybe read the rest of my post you replied to instead of only quoting the first sentence

I see. But I don't really think the BFA situation was as bad as you make it out to be. That was an expansion I actually liked, contrary to popular opinion, and I didn't really mind getting a delayed box feature. As long as it came, which it did. Unlike the dance studio! (Actually, I don't really care about that) Or aerial combat! (I was looking forward to this)

But somehow WotLK was still seen as the best expansion by many, even today.

[Hitei]

I can't help but share the same feeling, it does feel like it was meant to be part of K'aresh somehow.

I posted about this yesterday, that it was probably just that they decided to elevate Xal'atath as the principle void villain because Dimensius was a no personality generic void walker. So in order to get rid of dimensius first, rather than have Xal'atath die summoning him a la Gul'dan, they renamed 12.0 K'aresh to "Voidstorm" and made a new small scale patch K'aresh in which they could put Dimensius as TWW's final boss, getting him out of the way and leaving the power vacuum for Xal to be the face of the Void.

[Dvalin]

I think the Ethereal presence in Voidstorm is exactly because of what transpired on K'aresh, story-wise.

[blaatschaap]

It's still so weird that the more we learn about the Voidstorm, the more obvious it becomes that it was almost certainly originally envisioned as K'aresh. Prominent Ethereals presence. Void-blasted hellscape. Possibly out in space. Salhadaar as a boss fight, etc.

Every update just makes it more obvious that the WSS desperately needs a post-mortem documentary from the developers on what seems to have been quite the turbulent development.

Need some footage from the meeting where one person suggested "hey we kinda ripped off broker culture from the dudes we come up with for TBC, what if we just pretend we intended them to be the same people all along, never mind that we explicitly said they were native to the shadowlands - then we can reuse old assets AND future assets"

Whoever said that got employee of the month for sure

[Dvalin]

Need some footage from the meeting where one person suggested "hey we kinda ripped off broker culture from the dudes we come up with for TBC, what if we just pretend we intended them to be the same people all along, never mind that we explicitly said they were native to the shadowlands - then we can reuse old assets AND future assets"

Whoever said that got employee of the month for sure

You make everything sound so negative, as if the devs are cutting corners and having ill-intents. As if you're looking for something to blame for your dissatisfaction.

[milkmustache]

Wait so the harronir goddess is azeroth and she dreams gods into existance? Very yog-sothoth of her.

Also noticed there are some naga there?

I'm not sold on this one-- remember Talanji's model in Azj-Kahet as placeholder for the Haranir.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I posted about this yesterday, that it was probably just that they decided to elevate Xal'atath as the principle void villain because Dimensius was a no personality generic void walker. So in order to get rid of dimensius first, rather than have Xal'atath die summoning him a la Gul'dan, they renamed 12.0 K'aresh to "Voidstorm" and made a new small scale patch K'aresh in which they could put Dimensius as TWW's final boss, getting him out of the way and leaving the power vacuum for Xal to be the face of the Void.

That does check out, also with the heavy reuse of brokers assets, Tazavesh and all that.

[Sondrelk]

I posted about this yesterday, that it was probably just that they decided to elevate Xal'atath as the principle void villain because Dimensius was a no personality generic void walker. So in order to get rid of dimensius first, rather than have Xal'atath die summoning him a la Gul'dan, they renamed 12.0 K'aresh to "Voidstorm" and made a new small scale patch K'aresh in which they could put Dimensius as TWW's final boss, getting him out of the way and leaving the power vacuum for Xal to be the face of the Void.

In thinking about it, why would that be the case? Dimensius could easily be the boss in the first raid in Midnight (or one of the first raids rather). And then Xaø'atath could be the main villain going forward.

[Dvalin]

I'm not sold on this one-- remember Talanji's model in Azj-Kahet as placeholder for the Haranir.

Yeah, seeing how it's geographically disconnected from basically all zones, except for some radiation-like influence in Quel'thalas, and all wildlife basically being vegan-variants of animals, I doubt these are meant to be Naga.

[Nebron]

I can't help but share the same feeling, it does feel like it was meant to be part of K'aresh somehow.

I genuinely believe that K’aresh was never originally planned for 11.2. At sone point during early development there had to be some story shuffling done, perhaps to fit the newely emerged concept of the Worldsoul Saga.

Like for real, K’aresh and Dimensius feels so natural for Light vs Void expansion (Midnight), while Harandar aka Rootlands must have been originally planned for TWW. Guaranteed

[blaatschaap]

You make everything sound so negative, as if the devs are cutting corners and having ill-intents. As if you're looking for something to blame for your dissatisfaction.

You are just in denial about facts. Sorry to say. Again, eventually you'll figure it out like the rest of us.

[Dvalin]

You are just in denial about facts. Sorry to say. Again, eventually you'll figure it out like the rest of us.

I'm not. Things continually change during early development, I just don't think things have been done in a hastily (bad) way or as late as you're implying. As there's evidence of enough unique art-assets which take a considerable time to develop.

@Nebron We already know the Rootlands (probably beta-name for Harandar) was in early plans for the War Within. There's no denying that. Some just make it sound like there was some major last-minute reshuffling being done which is impacting the overall quality in a bad way, which I doubt is the case.

[blaatschaap]

I'm not. Things continually change during early development, I just don't think things have been done in a hastily (bad) way or as late as you're implying. As there's evidence of enough unique art-assets which take a considerable time to develop.

You aren't understanding they borrowed assets from a future release. That's why they look unique to you... Because midnight isn't out yet. Now that we are seeing voidstorm stuff, we know that's where they borrowed K'aresh from.

If BfA was the next release, you'd say siren isles wasn't repurposed island expedition stuff, because you hadn't seen island expeditions yet.

[Marlamin]

We are not doing the "asset reuse is bad" thing again, absolutely ridiculous discussion each time. Find a more useful topic.

[Dvalin]

You aren't understanding they borrowed assets from a future release. That's why they look unique to you... Because midnight isn't out yet. Now that we are seeing voidstorm stuff, we know that's where they borrowed K'aresh from.

Did you see Eco-domes? Or hear the same music? Which was also tailored towards sub-zones like those Eco-Domes or Tazavesh, or to the Dimensius raid? Which uses unique architecture not seen in the Voidstorm? And doesn't the Voidstorm have its own unique skybox? Borrowing some unit-designs from a new zone isn't that big of a sin, either. Tanaan Jungle also did this with some new Legion mobs.

You make it sound like K'aresh is low-effort. Which it is not.

@Marlamin Yeah, I'm getting tired of people trying to find a scapegoat for their negativity. 'See!? The devs are lazy!' is the point they're trying to make, which isn't based on reality. Which is a lot more nuanced.

[ChronoSul]

In thinking about it, why would that be the case? Dimensius could easily be the boss in the first raid in Midnight (or one of the first raids rather). And then Xaø'atath could be the main villain going forward.

Probably was worried about void fatigue tbh but without seeing the other raid tiers in midnight we wont know.