Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Ersula]

In the teaser:

"Your next adventure begins at home."
Midnight logo

This and materializing stats based on nothing.

Yeah, that's the trailer I mentioned. Before that whenever they talked about it they kept saying it was being developed by a team "completely independent from the Midnight team"

The zones are beautiful, Midnight features Dungeons & Delves & everything we could expect.....but can we admit at least half of the delve experiences are boring af? I'd prefer a quarter of what we're getting per expansion if they were more interesting. Seriously, I do not see why we need 10+ delves per expansion. I'd be happy with 4 + recycling the good ones from the previous expansions.

[Sondrelk]

The issue is that there is not a socks-off feature for those who don't like housing.

It's still a massive tentpole feature that impacts all content in the game in perpetuity.

All furniture datamined in patches can now be tied to some achievement or similar. All assets added since Classic can now be the reward for new achievements or challenges added now.

It is about the same as when Transmog was added as a feature. Gear becomes less about just numbers, but also how good it looks, and the opportunity for it to be a reward for something that players will engage with.

[Pyrophax]

Considering this is speculation thread - what story devs should tell to gradually revamp all capitals and starting zones?
Silvermoon is given, thats counts.

Elemental invasion in Khaz Modan? With revamped Ironforge and Gnomeregan? Maybe bringing Grim Batol as main city for Wildhammer? Revamped Darkforge city?

Life intervension in Northen Kalimdor? Healing Teldrassil, Hyjal and all NE stuff?

Demon invasion from Karazhan to rewamp Stormwind Kingdom?

[Nymrohd]

Considering this is speculation thread - what story devs should tell to gradually revamp all capitals and starting zones?
Silvermoon is given, thats counts.

Elemental invasion in Khaz Modan? With revamped Ironforge and Gnomeregan? Maybe bringing Grim Batol as main city for Wildhammer? Revamped Darkforge city?

Life intervension in Northen Kalimdor? Healing Teldrassil, Hyjal and all NE stuff?

Demon invasion from Karazhan to rewamp Stormwind Kingdom?

Yeah I was thinking redoing Elementals together with Khaz Modan would work. You can redo Ironforge with a significant outdoor component (airstrip, hills overlooking Wetlands etc) and keep the inside area Alliance. Plus I think they would want to have new zones mixed with revamped zones and they could make a massive underground zone beneath Khaz Modan that includes Dark Iron areas, Uldaman and the Molten Core. Plus a few orc areas and they could even keep the Frostmane around.

I was also thinking rest of Lordaeron could be a place the Arathi Empire lands on and invades.

[extasy]

The issue is that there is not a socks-off feature for those who don't like housing.

I mean i know alot of people who absolutely hate M+ and AP grind from legion, so why was that a good expansion again?

Not everything they will make as a feature will satisfy you and thats fine. don't like it? skip it. I've been waiting for housing in wow since forever.

[allegrian]

Considering this is speculation thread - what story devs should tell to gradually revamp all capitals and starting zones?
Silvermoon is given, thats counts.

Elemental invasion in Khaz Modan? With revamped Ironforge and Gnomeregan? Maybe bringing Grim Batol as main city for Wildhammer? Revamped Darkforge city?

Life intervension in Northen Kalimdor? Healing Teldrassil, Hyjal and all NE stuff?

Demon invasion from Karazhan to rewamp Stormwind Kingdom?

I really want a dwarven zones and cities revamp but I dont see it happenning when, in the dwarven expansion of TWW, they dropped the dwarves completely after the first 2 zones.

[Dracullus]

The issue is that there is not a socks-off feature for those who don't like housing.

"There is not sock-off feature for people who don't like this sock-off feature."

I have honestly no idea what you expected to be honest. SL and DF fixed game after various Legion experiments. TWW added proper solo endgame. We have stable patch and season cycle since late 2022. Core of game need no revolution, so they can add completely new modes. Housing is easily most requested feature missing in WoW. If they focus on something different, for example complete revamp of rating PVP or heroic world/leveling, someone else would complain it's not for him.

Housing is not a socks off level feature.

Could you provide example for "socks off" feature? I have feeling that nothing in WoW expacs reached your high standards.

[Pyrophax]

Yeah I was thinking redoing Elementals together with Khaz Modan would work. You can redo Ironforge with a significant outdoor component (airstrip, hills overlooking Wetlands etc) and keep the inside area Alliance. Plus I think they would want to have new zones mixed with revamped zones and they could make a massive underground zone beneath Khaz Modan that includes Dark Iron areas, Uldaman and the Molten Core. Plus a few orc areas and they could even keep the Frostmane around.

I was also thinking rest of Lordaeron could be a place the Arathi Empire lands on and invades.

Old Ironforge sub-zone should be awesome btw.

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I really want a dwarven zones and cities revamp but I dont see it happenning when, in the dwarven expansion of TWW, they dropped the dwarves completely after the first 2 zones.

It could be 2-3 expansions after TLT.
Looking at Midnight - 2 zones are seems too generous. Quel'thalas got one.
Khaz'Modan zone of Dun Morogh+Loch Modan+Wetlands+Twilight Highlands, DI zone of Badlands+Gourge+Burning Steppes+BlackRock. Maybe Underground zone inside Blackrock? 4th zone - some elemental plane?

[Makorus]

Housing is not a socks off level feature.

Housing is one of the most requested features ever in the game. People underestimate the magnitude of it. Just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't.

Did WoW ever add a feature that was universally loved? What an incredibly silly argument to make.

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The issue is that there is not a socks-off feature for those who don't like housing.

Can't you make this argument about every expansion? "If you don't like the main feature of the expansion, there is no feature you like".

[Ersula]

I mean i know alot of people who absolutely hate M+ and AP grind from legion, so why was that a good expansion again?

Because Legion had a lot of features. That's what we're saying. If housing doesn't grab you...and I don't think prey has grabbed anyone because they covered to little of it, what's to latch onto? If Artifacts or Order halls didn't catch your interest there was also a big world quest introduction. That was pretty revolutionary. Just the idea of fighting the legion carried the premise of the expansion, invasions alone in the prepatch got everyone hyped.**

**I'm kind of hoping there is some sort of invasion mechanic in midnight. Some of the footage showed that with the voidstorm.....but they didn't mention anything like that in regards to Gamescom or even since then.

It's still a massive tentpole feature that impacts all content in the game in perpetuity.

No.... It something that is tacitly connected to achievements & professions, but even all the endeavors rewards are just more furniture. Housing is pet battles.

Housing is one of the most requested features ever in the game. People underestimate the magnitude of it. Just because you personally don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't.

I guess if TWW & Midnight tell us anything, 2 features is all we're getting from expansions from now on, sure. But Legion had way more new stuff going on.

[Sondrelk]

No.... It something that is tacitly connected to achievements & professions, but even all the endeavors rewards are just more furniture. Housing is pet battles.

It's a giant pile of cosmetics that grows in tandem with the rest of the game organically. There will always be need for more cosmetic doodads and furniture to populate the world, and so there will be an evergreen feature that will continue to add cosmetics and the associated tiny dopamine hit every time something new is unlocked.

Just because you don't like it doesnt mean it isnt impacting the game.

[Ersula]

It's a giant pile of cosmetics that grows in tandem with the rest of the game organically. There will always be need for more cosmetic doodads and furniture to populate the world, and so there will be an evergreen feature that will continue to add cosmetics and the associated tiny dopamine hit every time something new is unlocked.

Just because you don't like it doesnt mean it isnt impacting the game.

How does that not describe pet battles? I get a second of dopamine everytime the game gives me a companion pet but I still don't do them. And inevitably the devs will forget the feature exists, like they did in TWW. And the devs will complain about having to accommodate the feature every expansion like they do for FFXIV.

[Sondrelk]

How does that not describe pet battles? I get a second of dopamine everytime the game gives me a companion pet but I still don't do them. And inevitably the devs will forget the feature exists, like they did in TWW. And the devs will complain about having to accommodate the feature every expansion like they do for FFXIV.

The point is that they can't forget it exists, in the same way they cannot forget Transmog exists given the required updates are already made as part of every patch.

[Skildar]

It's one of the most requested features in the history of the game.

I couldn't care less about housing to be honest. I get it's not like them saying that pet battle will knock your socks off but for me in current WoW something that would should be closer to having new movement and riding animations with better physics attached fo instance. That's something that every player will beneficiate from and for the entirerty of the game's future. Housing has potential but I'd rather play Sims or Animal crossing which are designed around that feature if I'm to get invested in such activities.

Something else that would have been a great addition is guild objectives and guild recruitment overhaul, let player define what they expect their newcomers to invest their time in to engage with the rest of the group and what they can expect in term of group activities. And as a bonus, the guild master can opt in for weekly objectives, let it be personal activities to be done by people or raid progression for the season, each member that helps fill the objective bar (even when it's completely filled) gets random rewards (gold, materials, flasks, potions, warbound gear, etc.) and a currency and you get to spend that currency to unlock some cosmetics when the bar is entirely filled. That would really give a boost to engage in communities and define community identities by setting simple objectives for RP, raid, dungeons, delves, exploration, pvp, random queuing, etc. The idea is to have people understand what they can expect joining your guild and make recruitment not something that only exists through third party websites.

Add a calendar overhaul to instead have a visual display of current and incoming contents to understand what activities are currently available and when it starts and ends in a quick glimpse, then add a button to showcase examples of rewards. It's not complicated and almost any modern game has something following this design. You can also have a quick scroll interface for smaller recurrent activities such as Darkmoon fair or single-day events so they don't canibalize the whole interface but are still presented to players as something relevant. Having an overhaul of this kind of interface also opens up new possibilities for a real calendar display for guilds and communities. Where for instance a guild master can create a repeatable raid event every Tuesday add set it up so that any battlenet friend of people invited can see the event and sign up to it, you could add item level and progress restrictions to make sure that it stays coherent, intuitive and not abused.

I mean you can make lists of features that will drastically improve the game quite easily, Blizzard has just too much noise coming to their ears from streamers and youtube video makers. I can tell you that in my circle of friends, housing has never been a demanded feature because people have tried it on ESO, FF XIV and/or Genshin Impact and they see where the limitations are and what caveat Blizzard will face when again you have other video games with gameplay dedicated to this in many different art styles that do a wonderful job without any of the problems WoW is facing being a very competitive game.

Anyway Maria presented TWW with Earthen being "such a cool new race" according to her, her words have lost any weight since that point for me

[allegrian]

Old Ironforge sub-zone should be awesome btw.

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It could be 2-3 expansions after TLT.
Looking at Midnight - 2 zones are seems too generous. Quel'thalas got one.
Khaz'Modan zone of Dun Morogh+Loch Modan+Wetlands+Twilight Highlands, DI zone of Badlands+Gourge+Burning Steppes+BlackRock. Maybe Underground zone inside Blackrock? 4th zone - some elemental plane?

I hope we end up getting all the old continents remade. We recently had development for arathi highlands, undercity and gilneas, they may be preparing the zones for future patches or expansions. The plaguelands could be healed completely or something while horde has undercity as hub and the alliance has gilneas (all remade like midnight)

[Vakir]

Anyway Maria presented TWW with Earthen being "such a cool new race" according to her, her words have lost any weight since that point for me

...do...do you expect the game team to undersell their own product?

[Nymrohd]

I understand not liking Housing and not planning to spend much time with it. I do not understand not realizing it is a huge deal.

[Luck4]

It could be 2-3 expansions after TLT.
Looking at Midnight - 2 zones are seems too generous. Quel'thalas got one.
Khaz'Modan zone of Dun Morogh+Loch Modan+Wetlands+Twilight Highlands, DI zone of Badlands+Gourge+Burning Steppes+BlackRock. Maybe Underground zone inside Blackrock? 4th zone - some elemental plane?

I would be so hyped for a World Revamp Saga, 3 chapters, each focusing in a subset/mix of zones from Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.

[Joshuaj]

Lotta yap from folks whose opinion is merely subjective, and nothing more.

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"I don't like housing" "Housing isn't for me"

So? Many others fw it.

[Sondrelk]

I would be so hyped for a World Revamp Saga, 3 chapters, each focusing in a subset/mix of zones from Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.

Would be great, yeah.
Though I might settle for an Avaloren trilogy with EK revamp where the Arathi invades and we eventually return fire.

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Lotta yap from folks whose opinion is merely subjective, and nothing more.

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"I don't like housing" "Housing isn't for me"

So? Many others fw it.

Definitely. Whether people like housing or not, it still makes it so every single enviromental asset you see besides rocks and trees a potential reward from something.
Especially now that we know it will be integrated not just in newer professions, but also old ones it adds a massive amount of content even just from flying around old zones actually farming materials again.