Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[blaatschaap]

If I had to hazard a guess, they'll probably tide people over to 12.0 with a significantly longer pre expansion type event than usual, to make it seem like less of a drought at the end. And probably giving people the new DH spec early so there is at least something actually new to do in the wait for midnight, at least for people with a DH alt, when season 3 has run its course.

[Dracullus]

If I had to hazard a guess, they'll probably tide people over to 12.0 with a significantly longer pre expansion type event than usual, to make it seem like less of a drought at the end. And probably giving people the new DH spec early so there is at least something actually new to do in the wait for midnight, at least for people with a DH alt, when season 3 has run its course.

Dude, what drought you are talking about, not only Season 3 seems to be as long as S1/S2 (no 11.2.6 patch) without any filler season before pre-patch, but also they start Remix just 2 months after K'aresh launch.

[Ersula]

Don't think its harder to lock up a spec then it is locking up a class tbh.

on the most basic level, they have coding strings preventing the creation of specific classes, but strings preventing activating specific specs don't exist. They've never had to do that before. They can stop you from changing specs entirely, but one specific spec? Nope.

It's probably not that much coding work but it'd be more work than doing something they already have the foundation for.

[blaatschaap]

Dude, what drought you are talking about, not only Season 3 seems to be as long as S1/S2 (no 11.2.6 patch) without any filler season before pre-patch, but also they start Remix just 2 months after K'aresh launch.

They are in prealpha, they need quite a bit more time to cook this game than people were expecting, we already know exactly how long remix will be. In this very thread, people are rightly speculating that prepatch is likely to last a lot longer for this expansion than we are used to. This is the first time we go to a new expansion in the new "faster" delivery cycle, there will be growing pains.

[Dracullus]

They are in prealpha, they need quite a bit more time to cook this game than people were expecting, we already know exactly how long remix will be. In this very thread, people are rightly speculating that prepatch is likely to last a lot longer for this expansion than we are used to. This is the first time we go to a new expansion in the new "faster" delivery cycle, there will be growing pains.

Literally nothing suggest they have problem with timeline. Remix dates on PTR are best example, they match perfectly with our speculated patch dates.

[Lorca]

Guys, again, they gave Amani women a new model when they could have easily reused the Darkspear model- which was their canonical appearance pre-Midnight.

If they aren't playable, they are wasting resources on an AR-tier model.

Exactly what I am thinking. Why waste so much time on a highly requested race to finally not letting us play it? Whole new zone, expanded culture, questing with/for them… bare in mind that they didn’t mention at any time anything about playable Haranir during TWW, and that there was people thinking we were not gonna see them again… and well, look how it turned out. With Amani I am very confident that we are gonna get then at some point if not in this expansion, then in the next.

Also, the fact there are the Revantusk in Zandalar saying their tribe will always stand by the Horde, and we didn’t get then any proper green skin color for DS with their customization upgrade always made me think that a properly playable Amani/Forest Troll race or allied race was likely to happen.

[blaatschaap]

Literally nothing suggest they have problem with timeline. Remix dates on PTR are best example, they match perfectly with our speculated patch dates.

I think we missed my last two sentences. Prepatch might arrive according to your schedule. Didn't even argue against that if you noticed. All I said is I expect the time between prepatch release and expansion release to be longer going forward. Not sure what you aren't getting. There's no prediction for expac release date you can make that's based on anything right now.

[Reive]

Literally nothing suggest they have problem with timeline. Remix dates on PTR are best example, they match perfectly with our speculated patch dates.

the anemic expansion content does. either they can't keep up with the schedule or they don't have enough budget.

[Nightshade711]

the anemic expansion content does. either they can't keep up with the schedule or they don't have enough budget.

“Anemic expansion content”
Homie forgot extensive player housing is coming in Midnight.

(And that we haven’t even had the systems panel yet)

[Reive]

“Anemic expansion content”
Homie forgot extensive player housing is coming in Midnight.

(And that we haven’t even had the systems panel yet)

>no raiding rework
>no delves rework
>no m+ rework
>no pvp rework
>no new class/race combos
>no talents rework
>no new class, just a new spec
>a reskinned allied race

there is basically nothing beyond the bare minimum. i get it, housing takes a lot of resources, but they have been working on it since legion (according to them). wth are they doing with their budget?

[Dracullus]

I think we missed my last two sentences. Prepatch might arrive according to your schedule. Didn't even argue against that if you noticed. All I said is I expect the time between prepatch release and expansion release to be longer going forward. Not sure what you aren't getting. There's no prediction for expac release date you can make that's based on anything right now.

Of course no one in this thread can predict fuck up like Shadowlands that moved whole release date and extended pre-patch. But currently, if they expect delay, starting Remix while K'aresh is just 8-9 weeks old would be last think they would do.

“Anemic expansion content”
Homie forgot extensive player housing is coming in Midnight.

(And that we haven’t even had the systems panel yet)

I don't expect new stuff on system panel, at least no big ones. Marketing for Midnight is bad, but c'mon, they wouldn't exclude it from launch trailer... right? xD

And of course typical doomsayer post "content doesn't exist if it's not new feature" is hilarious as ever. Obviously new continent, new set of dungeons, new raids, new delves, new battleground just appear out of thin air. Not to mention that ignoring housing is stupid on it's own.

Without borrowed power we will have 1-2 big things every expansion for obvious reason - if it's not for single expansion, Blizzard is comitting to continue this. Battle Pets system in MoP - now we expect them in every expac, people were dissapointed when K'aresh didnt have any. Delves? Now we expect 10+ every expac as well. Housing? Next expac without new neighborhood and ton of new items will be considered failure. And obviously every new class and even spec is huge commitment.

the anemic expansion content does. either they can't keep up with the schedule or they don't have enough budget.

If expac is "anemic" as you say, it would be even easier to meet schedule and prevent drought, brainiac.

[Ochinko]

Kinda sad they are so dead set on Devourer using glaives and reworking all the glaives into int instead of giving them polearms aka scythes.

[Super Dickmann]

>no raiding rework
>no delves rework
>no m+ rework
>no pvp rework
>no new class/race combos
>no talents rework
>no new class, just a new spec
>a reskinned allied race

there is basically nothing beyond the bare minimum. i get it, housing takes a lot of resources, but they have been working on it since legion (according to them). wth are they doing with their budget?

Why would you rework raiding, delves or m+ when they all work and are released/iterated upon at steady 6-month intervals? The release of new content to these core endgame elements is what counts. Gimmick features like islands, Torghast, scenarios and now Prey aren't why anyone plays any of these games past a shot of novelty. The content cadence for both TWW and DF has been completely consistent in this respect, with no BFA/Legion style eternal grind, overlong and empty mid patches like Cata/SL or nostalgic year-long content drought like Wrath/Mists.

- - - Updated - - -

Kinda sad they are so dead set on Devourer using glaives and reworking all the glaives into int instead of giving them polearms aka scythes.

It all comes down to limiting DHs to glaives and making glaives a new weapon type in the first place instead of branching out, same as by just limiting it to elves instead of adding draenei/orcs. It's a massively pigeonholed class, see also why 90% of their sets look the same. But maybe I'm biased as I haven't touched one since BFA.

[Rathwell]

Kinda sad they are so dead set on Devourer using glaives and reworking all the glaives into int instead of giving them polearms aka scythes.

Not sure why, I mean, we've other classes that equip different weapons depending on their spec. Arms Warrior has a 2h while Fury dual wields. Marksman hunter uses gun /bow/crossbow while Survival uses 2h.

Why can't Demon Hunter's caster spec use something but glaives? It'd far more interesting if they wielded something else

[The-Shan]

I wonder if we'll hear from Anveena again in Midnight? I think it'd be nice to hear from her, and it'd be cool to give the Sunwell an avatar that it can speak through at times.

[Casualist34]

Some of my favorite current unanswered threads for Midnight are the mounts.

A rostrum Panthera mount and a Nightborne Space Bull. Where the hell are these going to come into play?

Also on the web page for Midnight, under Voidstorm it says "A distant, mysterious world shaped by the Void where predation runs supreme. While threats roam every corner, new allies may linger in the shadows." I wonder if there's a rogue Domanar group or something. I suppose we must have a renown track for each zone, so I'm curious where that goes.

Panthera could be future harranir mount ? Also If void elfs learn to become DH to help the fight against void then maybe just maybe bob wifey could do same thing but new spec for nightborn mage only - astromancer with questline ( mount space bull award ) ? I know too much hopium

[Rathwell]

Do y'all think Wowhead is going to keep a database of all the Housing item models so one can browse them in gallery and preview them in 3D, like we can with armor and weaponry?

[Reive]

Why would you rework raiding, delves or m+ when they all work and are released/iterated upon at steady 6-month intervals?

i repeat: what are they doing with their budget? you want to make an expansion light on features? fine, but i expet major system reworks. i see neither. housing doesn't justify the lack of content since they have been working on it for YEARS.

The release of new content to these core endgame elements is what counts.

that's the bare minimum. i think we can/should expect more since it's not like they get no money from us

Gimmick features like islands, Torghast, scenarios and now Prey aren't why anyone plays any of these games past a shot of novelty.

people don't play them long term because blizzard doesn't iterate on them.

[The-Shan]

>no raiding rework
>no delves rework
>no m+ rework
>no pvp rework
>no new class/race combos
>no talents rework
>no new class, just a new spec
>a reskinned allied race

there is basically nothing beyond the bare minimum. i get it, housing takes a lot of resources, but they have been working on it since legion (according to them). wth are they doing with their budget?

>I'd say they reworked raiding with how the format is changing to smaller raids.
>We also are getting new race/class combos, at minimum one. We've had it hinted through screenshots that more are possible too. (i.e kul tiran paladin)
>Talents are getting bit changes through new points and some new types of talents they've hinted at, arch talents or prime talents or some big word like that.
>the allied race isn't reskinned, its new geometry entirely. Point at a single part of the Haronir's geometry that looks 'reskinned' to me please. It might use the same skeleton as another race, but that's hardly 'reskinning'


Why does everything need to be reworked? Raiding, Delves and M+ aren't broken. To me it sounds like you just don't like WoW. If it was meant to be 'bare minimum' we'd have WoD. They aren't going to rework the entire game...

[Super Dickmann]

i repeat: what are they doing with their budget? you want to make an expansion light on features? fine, but i expet major system reworks. i see neither. housing doesn't justify the lack of content since they have been working on it for YEARS. .

Making them at said consistent pace instead of once every year is what the resources are spent on, as is the large patch-small patch-connecting patch system that they've kept to throughout the last two expansions. You might think Siren Isle or Forbidden Reach were disposable at best and you would be right, but their equivalent back in the day was jack shit.

Everything in the DF to TWW timespan is geared towards this steady seasonality of content and towards avoiding creating parasitic systems that eat up player and dev time (Legiondaries, Azerite, Covenants) and it's succeeded. There's no point in reinventing the wheel if the wheel's actually working and gameplay novelty can be supplied via said talent additions and reworks (not that hero talents themselves weren't a dud).