Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Super Dickmann]

Against fear, against potentially terrible odds, heroes that carry their own before the rest. Because those heroes know full well that if they win these fights, these battles, as victors it is their right to tell to their people the story as they see fit. That's why Garrosh works and Anduin feels flat, why Cataclysm Sylvanas worked and Calia is useless to any story.

Agreed, but it goes even more basic than that. For a story, especially a pulp violent fantasy story for WoW, to work, the people involved need to want something, anything, and act to achieve it. The better their motive puts them into clashes with other people the better. There's nothing fundamentally different about Anduin concept-wise to say, WC3 Jaina or Thrall, but the latter, due to the mission format, always put something between them and their goal and had them act to get it. Thrall wanted to get to Kalimdor, make a new home, defeat his enemies and redeem his people. Jaina chose to abandon her kingdom and risk it all on a refuge fleet, then turn against her dad.

Anduin, left to his own devices, with the exception of Mists and some bare flashes regarding his dad in Legion and TWW doesn't want anything. He's a passive, omnibenevolent sock, who would just as well sit around in world peace if baddies didn't keep ruining his day and due to the fact that the whole narrative works in his favor even then he's never challenged. This is a character who's arc in TWW and his short story is about how much he should love himself the way everyone else not slated to have a raid marker over his head already loves him. But he at least has those flashes. Calia, Tess, and every allied or main race leader not called Talanji, doesn't even have that. They all want to live in vegetative peace, which they already have, and only stir when some prick tries to mess with them. There's a lot to be said about Before the Storm, but the Calia there, notwithstanding the context she's in, is a massively superior character to any of them, because she does actually want something, she has visions, a sense of destiny, she wants to assert herself and rule, to help people, sure, but she also has a genuine desire to lead in a field of reluctant bums. That's something.

[Joshuaj]

No, I mean the idea that the game was based on the Warhammer IP wasn't common knowledge then, and it was never a functional part of the game's actual narrative as of release. That it was inspired by Warhammer is a known quantity, and has been for almost two decades now.



Which again still reads as "they can only make changes when something is in its infancy, and after that, I can arbitrarily close the door on further changes."



That would require the "new lore" to fundamentally replace or supersede the old lore, which I don't think is necessarily in play as often as people make the claim. The First Ones, for instance, neither replace nor supersede the Titans in any real sense - it's not a retcon, and everything the Titans are and did still happened in the narrative itself. The existence of a wider metacosm beyond the physical universe doesn't mean the physical universe is unimportant, or that events there no longer matter.



The physical universe is not part of the six cosmic forces outlined in the First Ones mythos. So it's entirely possible that the First One of Light and the First One of Void, created or became their respective force and then came into conflict with one another, with said conflict creating the physical universe. The two sets of mythology are flexible enough to fit together without much coercion, really.

It's entirely possible that, after the pattern was made and everything was set up, the influences of Light and Shadow clashed to create the Beyond.

Regardless, Light and Shadow creating everything is still somewhat true. They would just have a higher existence than we originally expected, alongside the other 4 powers.

[Hitei]

It lacks spectacle.

Does it? It lacks some of the ostentatiousness of Titan architecture, but it's still pretty spectacular and certainly it's own aesthetic.

Spoiler: 

[COBRAstriker]

Yeah, a lot of the animations are a bit too goofy. The lean emote, for example, really showcases that on some race/gender combinations over others.

Really shows how outdated WoW is in that department. We're getting outclassed by indie games

[Joshuaj]

The paranoia is weird to me. This isn't a bully calling McFly a chicken, not engaging is just as bad, it's asking you to back up an opinion. If you're "backed into a corner" to be forced to say a preference, and you feel like that betrays something, it might be worth self-examination.

But you have no obligation to. And that's fine.

At the end of the day, if abilities and aesthetics make something work, it isn't the character, it's the encounter itself or the setting or the art style.

So it isn't Dimensius. It's just any spectacle. Any sufficiently talented art team can also make anything else with an equal or higher amount of scale, regardless of who or what it's connected to story wise.

That's all my point is.

You were doing more than just asking me to back up an opinion. Let's be real now.

[Super Dickmann]

Does it? It lacks some of the ostentatiousness of Titan architecture, but it's still pretty spectacular and certainly it's own aesthetic.

Agreed on this one, Sepulcher worked visually very well. If anything, its problem, like most visual elements in Shadowlands not named Maldraxxus is that it didn't go far enough. If you're going to go meta with it and have god printers and shit, don't put in sand, make it an untexture-seeming white, add those fractal shapes into the vegetation, make it abstract and sketchy. What we got was still good, especially the raid interiors, but it could've gone further.

[COBRAstriker]

But the real origin of all this stuff, good, bad, or neutral, starts in 2008 with Activision.

I find it hard to believe that creative decisions come from the C suite, CEOs, or what have you. I tend to think that these people care more about budgets, head count, monetization of their games, content release cadence and so on instead of being involved in WoW's narrative or characterization. The idea that a CEO would care about details like ingame dialogue is just silly, especially when we have the devs themselves saying that certain things have changed because they demanded said changes

And I believe that the changes in WoW's stories, characterization, tone and vibe are from people that actively work on WoW, and I find it silly to think otherwise

[Super Dickmann]

I find it hard to believe that creative decisions come from the C suite, CEOs, or what have you. I tend to think that these people care more about budgets, head count, monetization of their games, content release cadence and so on instead of being involved in WoW's narrative or characterization. The idea that a CEO would care about details like ingame dialogue is just silly, especially when we have the devs themselves saying that certain things have changed because they demanded said changes

And I believe that the changes in WoW's stories, characterization, tone and vibe are from people that actively work on WoW, and I find it silly to believe otherwise

Blaming Corporate is a thousand-year cope-job. Writers, big or small are why the writing sucks. Corporate did not tell anyone to spend umpteen millions of dollars to tell the Sadfang Chronicles in high definition, a story told and comprehensible only through out of game materials. Nor did anyone in Corporate tell the writers to dilute their brand identity by devaluing the red and blue jerseys they were selling by telling everyone that engaging with the main premise of the game is bad and they should instead learn about world peace and universalism.

[Vakir]

You were doing more than just asking me to back up an opinion. Let's be real now.

Nope, I'm pretty sure what I said is what is happening.

When someone enjoys something, I generally like to understand why, even if it's something I disagree with. I've disagreed with Dickmann on a number of fronts but I love talking and reading pages of it.

It is important to distinguish enjoying character design and spell effects from a character.

Edit: Hell, case and point disagreeing above. Definitely not blaming corporate for a writing decision, I'm talking about dumb, minor nonsense like fruit pictures.

The hackery of the actual writers is another story altogether. I made it pretty clear who I think is to blame on that.

Danuser and Metzen were specific examples I used of confirmed artists making their decisions on their own products.

[Ersula]

Less the sense that cause and effect exist, and more that events are predestined or fated to occur according to some form of purely linear design. Danuser described it like this a 2020 interview about Shadowlands:

Time is perceived differently in the Shadowlands. Time and Death are not related, as Death is about eternity and not linear time. Time is a construct of order and structure, but circumstances in the Shadowlands are more chaotic. To a soul in the Shadowlands, it can therefore feel like eons have passed since their arrival whereas only a few months or years have elapsed in the world of the living, much like a dream in which a significant period of time can seem to pass even though one has only slept for a few hours. (Source)

Which we thought would tie into some sort of timeskip, but turns out it was just an attempt to pre-emptively lampshade any timeline problems with squeezing so many deceased characters into the Shadowlands storyline. Ultimately it had nothing to do with the Bronze Dragon's precious timeline.

As it is now, there's no reason to think the Shadowlands timeline isn't concurrent to the material plane's timeline.

[Vakir]

Which we thought would tie into some sort of timeskip, but turns out it was just an attempt to pre-emptively lampshade any timeline problems with squeezing so many deceased characters into the Shadowlands storyline. Ultimately it had nothing to do with the Bronze Dragon's precious timeline.

Same with the stupid strands of rope thing.

"This version of Garrosh was one of the worst. But anyway, the deceased Garrosh you meet acts exactly like that version with no other differences, refers specifically to a character he could not have met in every possible continuity, immediately recognizes the players as that sole version of him, and unmakes his existence permanently which invalidates all other versions of this character at the end point of their timeline."

Naturally.

[Aucald]

As it is now, there's no reason to think the Shadowlands timeline isn't concurrent to the material plane's timeline.

Except both the developers and in-game dialogues relate that it simply isn't, so there's plenty of reason to think it isn't concurrent or related to the material plane's timeline or sense of time. For instance, those NPCs who were taken by the Mawsworn directly to Torghast in the opening events of Death Rising tell the PC that they've been their for seemingly ages, and Jaina herself said she'd escaped Torghast only to be returned there so many times that she'd lost count of them, all of them relating the sense that they'd been there for seemingly years despite the fact it was only a day or so at most.

Given the nature of souls in the Covenant realms, it's not necessary for there to be any time inconsistencies for them to still be there - they're dead, they're just hanging around as shades in their respective afterlives for compative eternity.

[COBRAstriker]

Blaming Corporate is a thousand-year cope-job. Writers, big or small are why the writing sucks. Corporate did not tell anyone to spend umpteen millions of dollars to tell the Sadfang Chronicles in high definition, a story told and comprehensible only through out of game materials. Nor did anyone in Corporate tell the writers to dilute their brand identity by devaluing the red and blue jerseys they were selling by telling everyone that engaging with the main premise of the game is bad and they should instead learn about world peace and universalism.

Yeah, I hate the current direction with a passion, and I find it hard to engage with WoW's stories now even if I want to, because the vibe and tone of the game have fundamentally changed. The constant attempts at "humanizing" certain races. Like hamfisting Calia in the forsaken leadership. Or avoiding the fact that they used to do twisted experiments on living creatures. The dismantlement of faction identity and with that, the conflict/animosity between them. The fact that every character on "our side" is now morphing into one singular, unidentifiable blob of moral righteousness, with preachy dialogue to boot, and that every character which did things in the past that would be considered "evil" must now apologize and repent, with complete disregard for the circumstances at the time which made said actions justifiable. As an older fan, I still enjoy the overall gameplay of WoW, but I find it almost impossible to get invested in these stories, or care about these characters, because all the flavor and uniqueness from the setting is being erased

The CEOs are not at fault for this. It's the narrative designers and quest writers which are hellbent on making every piece of media they consume or work on reflect their real world ideals, ideals which, are not shared by everyone

[Houle]

No, I mean the idea that the game was based on the Warhammer IP wasn't common knowledge then, and it was never a functional part of the game's actual narrative as of release. That it was inspired by Warhammer is a known quantity, and has been for almost two decades now.

It wasnt part of the games functual narrative at release, but the games narrative was extremely limited in scope through it. They came up with some backstory, sure, but nothing really even close to the scope of what was later established in the following games.

Which again still reads as "they can only make changes when something is in its infancy, and after that, I can arbitrarily close the door on further changes."

Thats simply called human nature. When something is new and people havent developed strong feelings/attachment to it yet, they are more open for it to change. When something has worked and been a thing for decades, people tend to grow more attached to it, and thus dont take change to it as kindly. And especially when said changes are generally seen as worse, or unnecessary, or both. See the Jailer as the best example.

That would require the "new lore" to fundamentally replace or supersede the old lore, which I don't think is necessarily in play as often as people make the claim. The First Ones, for instance, neither replace nor supersede the Titans in any real sense - it's not a retcon, and everything the Titans are and did still happened in the narrativesucesful itself. The existence of a wider metacosm beyond the physical universe doesn't mean the physical universe is unimportant, or that events there no longer matter.

Ofc it doesnt always happen, but often enough it does. See for example what happened to the titans in Chronicles vs What was then shown ingame when the player characters found them. Two completely and utterly different things. Or the VLs goals. Turns out, Dimensius, the main one shown in the game, didnt give 2 shits about "corrupting" K'aresh or Azeroth, he just wanted to eat. And lets not delve into Sylvanas, who had like 3 different contradicting motivations and goals between 2 xpacs and a book.

The physical universe is not part of the six cosmic forces outlined in the First Ones mythos. So it's entirely possible that the First One of Light and the First One of Void, created or became their respective force and then came into conflict with one another, with said conflict creating the physical universe. The two sets of mythology are flexible enough to fit together without much coercion, really.

Given that it hasnt been fully resolved yet, we can only speculate on what was shown. And what theyve shown so far points to the opposite direction - that Chronicle is simply false.

They already set it up, retconning "Chronicle is the definitive lore" to "Chronicle is just written from the titans POV/titan propaganda". Which they then followed up with Odyns letter to the keepers, in which he specifically says not to mention the First Ones, and portray the titans as "the source of all creation".

So, the implication is that in-universe, the titans/their servants simpy lied in Chronicle, bc they dont want the other races to know about the First Ones, so they made up a different creation for the Warcraft cosmos that didnt involve them.

Out of universe, its just a blatant retcon that overwrites the previous lore, in which Chronicle was the definitive lore of what happened.

Curious, where was any of this said?

Chronicles 4 for example iirc

[Ersula]

Same with the stupid strands of rope thing.

"This version of Garrosh was one of the worst. But anyway, the deceased Garrosh you meet acts exactly like that version with no other differences, refers specifically to a character he could not have met in every possible continuity, immediately recognizes the players as that sole version of him, and unmakes his existence permanently which invalidates all other versions of this character at the end point of their timeline."

Naturally.

Which shouldn't have needed an explanation at all. Just say each Timeline has their own Shadowlands. At no point to we interact with anything but npcs from the original timeline.

The only reason players started asking about the timeline is because they announced Draka would be an important shadowlands character but for all we knew AU Draka is still alive. Doesn't the above explanation create some problems with Garrosh's soul getting exploded while most people are convinced he's going to reappear as a future AU villain?

Except both the developers and in-game dialogues relate that it simply isn't, so there's plenty of reason to think it isn't concurrent or related to the material plane's timeline or sense of time. For instance, those NPCs who were taken by the Mawsworn directly to Torghast in the opening events of Death Rising tell the PC that they've been their for seemingly ages, and Jaina herself said she'd escaped Torghast only to be returned there so many times that she'd lost count of them, all of them relating the sense that they'd been there for seemingly years despite the fact it was only a day or so at most.

Given the nature of souls in the Covenant realms, it's not necessary for there to be any time inconsistencies for them to still be there - they're dead, they're just hanging around as shades in their respective afterlives for compative eternity.

"The way time feels" is completely subjective. People don't have actual internal clocks. Time feeling faster or slower has nothing to do with linear time.

This all reads like devs just talking out of their ass. Ultimately none of it mattered.

[Super Dickmann]

Yeah, I hate the current direction with a passion, and I find it hard to engage with WoW's stories now even if I want to, because the vibe and tone of the game have fundamentally changed. The constant attempts at "humanizing" certain races. Like hamfisting Calia in the forsaken leadership. Or avoiding the fact that they used to do twisted experiments on living creatures. The dismantlement of faction identity and with that, the conflict/animosity between them. The fact that every character on "our side" is now morphing into one singular, unidentifiable blob of moral righteousness, with preachy dialogue to boot, and that every character which did things in the past that would be considered "evil" must now apologize and repent, with complete disregard for the circumstances at the time which made said actions justifiable. As an older fan, I still enjoy the overall gameplay of WoW, but I find it almost impossible to get invested in these stories, or care about these characters

Generally agreed on all points, save that trajectory-wise the current route of Blizzard is trying to find what works and doesn't out of first principles. After SL they tried to match the fortune-cookie playground mentality in a setting where everything else corresponds to it and made something harmless, but more like a Hearthstone spin-off in DF.

In TWW they backed off on that tone, down to things I swear were mean-spirited like having the sole survivor of the happy-go-lucky Dora the Explorer crew get his eyes eaten and his friends cannibalized and infested by giant spiders before he dies, but while maintaining world peace and the lack of any political conflicts in a new setting. TWW is a lot better written, both dialogue and worldbuilding-wise, it's leagues better than the last Metzen project (SC2), but it's still missing the juice. For both, whenever they've gone back to the factions they've produced absolutely wretched stories like Gilneas and Arathi.

Now they're going back to an old setting and factions, while keeping TWW's approach in other ways, down to our inevitable reconciliation and hug-a-thon in the Amani and Blood Elf race war. By process of elimination they'll circle their way back to factional fare, as best as the staff can, by the time we're pensioners and doing something else.

[Joshuaj]

When do y'all think we'll get Alpha news?

[Ersula]

When do y'all think we'll get Alpha news?

I'm betting they planned Alpha release for this week but it got moved back a week because of the extra Legion Remix testing.

[Hearthfinder]

I predict exciting news in 15 minutes! (Which means there won't be any!)

Be cool if it happened, though. Wouldn't mind a lengthy blog post detailing all the juicy new character customisation options we won't be getting for our Void Elves.

[Joshuaj]

I'm betting they planned Alpha release for this week but it got moved back a week because of the extra Legion Remix testing.

I fucking beg for this not to be the case.

- - - Updated - - -

Nope, I'm pretty sure what I said is what is happening.

When someone enjoys something, I generally like to understand why, even if it's something I disagree with. I've disagreed with Dickmann on a number of fronts but I love talking and reading pages of it.

It is important to distinguish enjoying character design and spell effects from a character.

Edit: Hell, case and point disagreeing above. Definitely not blaming corporate for a writing decision, I'm talking about dumb, minor nonsense like fruit pictures.

The hackery of the actual writers is another story altogether. I made it pretty clear who I think is to blame on that.

Danuser and Metzen were specific examples I used of confirmed artists making their decisions on their own products.

Uhuh...

I'll assume you're telling the truth then.