Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[allegrian]

Not really - Alleria confirmed, I think maybe as early as prepatch, that she wasn’t an Old God. As for why they pulled the K’aresh dialogue, I honestly assume they just wanted to save it for “surprise” reveal later. But it’s easier to rewrite a little blurb in a quest than it is to re-record voice acting. And thus the Deminsius line.

All of that to say - this doesn’t represent a major shift in intention here, just timing. Kinda like the Haronir (and probably MIA Thrall).

What about the black blood then? It was suposed to be a big deal, with Orwenya focusing on it, the full goblin patch being about it like a kind of evil azerite, and Xalatath herself says that the black blood is her power in the ending of 11.0. Then they dropped the concept entirely and try to make us forget it ever existed, with that dev lead from gamescom confirming it will not be a thing in midnight.

[Cheezits]

I can't say I like the idea of a Draenei patch being on some random OC planet.

[milkmustache]

I can't say I like the idea of a Draenei patch being on some random OC planet.

It'd certainly be a backtrack on how awesome it's been to see Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman get proper zones. I sort of don't expect it. I imagine they come here somehow, or it's worldbuilding for future stories.

[Cheezits]

It'd certainly be a backtrack on how awesome it's been to see Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman get proper zones. I sort of don't expect it. I imagine they come here somehow, or it's worldbuilding for future stories.

It's a good enough excuse for an influx of Draenei + friendly Demon races to show up, but yeah, it would be a total waste if we went to another space zone after back to back Karesh and Voidstorm.

[Jastall]

What about the black blood then? It was suposed to be a big deal, with Orwenya focusing on it, the full goblin patch being about it like a kind of evil azerite, and Xalatath herself says that the black blood is her power in the ending of 11.0. Then they dropped the concept entirely and try to make us forget it ever existed, with that dev lead from gamescom confirming it will not be a thing in midnight.

It may come back in TLT in some form, but yeah the whole Black Blood thing is obviously a casualty of the World Soul Saga swerving TWW away from its initial concept midway through. It's not that big a deal, they can always chalk it up to it being her plan A that got derailed both by us killing Ansurek/Gallywix and by the Dark Heart being taken from her. And once she got the Macguffin back, Dimensius's power means she doesn't need any of the stuff anymore to achieve her aims.

[COBRAstriker]

Completed the list for you. It won‘t happen, but it would be nice to have a Draenei in there.

It won't happen, but just placing those characters side by side and comparing them just shows how far WoW has fallen

[Cheezits]

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...1176344051.png

Huh... the new blog post hid a sneaky hunter in healer spec. Check Felix on the right column.

Guess the gimmick of TLT will be lots of class stuff building off the Midnight pruning.

[rainhard]

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...1176344051.png

Huh... the new blog post hid a sneaky hunter in healer spec. Check Felix on the right column.

Someone can make a video out of this.. probably just an oversight though.

[Joshuaj]

Or its just that, maybe he was really set up to the task to inflitrate, but saw the light as a better way literslly. Lets assume that.

While hes brothers just believed he succesfully infiltrated, not knowing he changed hes view. Could be just that.

I mean, that's what I think LMAO

[Monkal]

It won't happen, but just placing those characters side by side and comparing them just shows how far WoW has fallen

Billions must unsubscribe.

- - - Updated - - -

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...1176344051.png

Huh... the new blog post hid a sneaky hunter in healer spec. Check Felix on the right column.

Guess the gimmick of TLT will be lots of class stuff building off the Midnight pruning.

Those names are all in Portuguese lmao

[COBRAstriker]

Billions must unsubscribe.

Well, millions did, lol. The thing is that Warcraft got big off simple, old school fantasy stories, cool characters (both in archetype and design) and big, cool moments. It never had any deep stories. That was WoW's bread and butter. And it worked for a very long time until they decided to change the formula. You compare the characters on the left with the lameness of today and yeah, it's pretty grim

[Limayria]

Well, millions did, lol. The thing is that Warcraft got big off simple, old school fantasy stories, cool characters (both in archetype and design) and big, cool moments. It never had any deep stories. That was WoW's bread and butter. And it worked for a very long time until they decided to change the formula. You compare the characters on the left with the lameness of today and yeah, it's pretty grim

Do you have literally any proof of "millions" unsubscribing

[Cheezits]

Those names are all in Portuguese lmao

Wrath of the Portuguese confirmed?

[COBRAstriker]

Do you have literally any proof of "millions" unsubscribing

I think it's pretty obvious, no? Culturally, WoW might as well be dead. It won't die anytime soon as a game, it will always have players, but culturally, yeah, it's pretty dead. Nobody cares about these new characters or cinematics, let's be honest. And when I say nobody, I don't mean 0 people, I mean that there's very few who do care. I think that much is obvious

[Eldryth]

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms...1176344051.png

Huh... the new blog post hid a sneaky hunter in healer spec. Check Felix on the right column.

Guess the gimmick of TLT will be lots of class stuff building off the Midnight pruning.

Hm... Do they usually have completely meaningless stuff like that in mockups? The one similar instance that comes to mind for me was the Leather-wearing Dracthyr in the initial Warband camp mockup, back when they could only be Evokers. That was more or less agreed to be meaningless at the time... except they did end up getting access to Rogues soon afterwards, in TWW's first minor patch.


Maybe now that new specs are a real possibility, and they talked about seeing opportunities for them from looking at the groups we'll be seeing in the story, they might actually be thinking of a Hunter healer spec? We should be seeing a good amount of the Farstriders (and I know Halduron is important for at least one zone), and I think the Amani have a lot of Hunters. And Tyrande heals despite being a Hunter in all but name; she and the Night Elves aren't involved yet but think there's been hints about them getting involved in the Elven plot.

[Limayria]

I think it's pretty obvious, no? Culturally, WoW might as well be dead. It won't die anytime soon as a game, it will always have players, but culturally, yeah, it's pretty dead. Nobody cares about these new characters or cinematics, let's be honest. And when I say nobody, I don't mean 0 people, I mean that there's very few who do care. I think that much is obvious

Wow is never going to be as relevant as it was when it peaked in Wotlk because the monoculture has been dying for a long time, the novelty of a real game with real people online is long gone, considering most every game that comes out has online multiplayer shoved into it nowadays. And a key component of wows early popularity was how it functioned as a glorified chat room for a lot of people but now there's Twitter or discord or reddit, your social media of choice really, to fill that niche of meeting and talking to people

Hm... Do they usually have completely meaningless stuff like that in mockups? The one similar instance that comes to mind for me was the Leather-wearing Dracthyr in the initial Warband camp mockup, back when they could only be Evokers. That was more or less agreed to be meaningless at the time... except they did end up getting access to Rogues soon afterwards, in TWW's first minor patch.


Maybe now that new specs are a real possibility, and they talked about seeing opportunities for them from looking at the groups we'll be seeing in the story, they might actually be thinking of a Hunter healer spec? We should be seeing a good amount of the Farstriders (and I know Halduron is important for at least one zone), and I think the Amani have a lot of Hunters. And Tyrande heals despite being a Hunter in all but name; she and the Night Elves aren't involved yet but think there's been hints about them getting involved in the Elven plot.

Healing hunter is still super weird but if we do get it I hope it's like the rift healer (rogue spec I think?) where you shot healing needles at people lol.

[Monkal]

Hm... Do they usually have completely meaningless stuff like that in mockups? The one similar instance that comes to mind for me was the Leather-wearing Dracthyr in the initial Warband camp mockup, back when they could only be Evokers. That was more or less agreed to be meaningless at the time... except they did end up getting access to Rogues soon afterwards, in TWW's first minor patch.

I think I should point out that all those character names in the image are really silly and not something you'd actually name your character; I think it's safe to bet it's just a mockup that someone screwed up while assembling it on Canva or whatever. I wouldn't read too much into it tbh

[Mackud]

You know after 5985 pages the thread's hit a new rock bottom when the speculations turned to Healing Hunters over a screenshot labeled "Work in progress"

Social Media says the names are all taken from a Brazilian soap TV show called Grande Familia so clearly it was done by some Brazilian fella who had far too much enjoyment doing that.

[Villager720]

What about the black blood then? It was suposed to be a big deal, with Orwenya focusing on it, the full goblin patch being about it like a kind of evil azerite, and Xalatath herself says that the black blood is her power in the ending of 11.0. Then they dropped the concept entirely and try to make us forget it ever existed, with that dev lead from gamescom confirming it will not be a thing in midnight.

Almost certainly a dangling plot thread related to the world soul centric plots in TWW, something I expect will return to being front & center in Northrend/TLT. There’s a giant “dead” old god spread across that entire continent. Probably not a coincidence.


It’s worth remembering that Blizzard has now directly confirmed that they spread TWW story beats across the whole WSS. TWW alone, initially, was supposed to wrap up Azeroth’s world soul arc - but that’s now been stretched across 3 expansions. Meaning those early story beats from TWW, such as Beledar and the Black Blood, that seemed to just sort of “end”, might not have been forgotten, but moved back in the trilogy since they’re critical to “the End”, as they initialized rounded out TWW. See : Harronir as a prime example of threads that weren’t “dropped”, just “shifted back”.

[COBRAstriker]

Wow is never going to be as relevant as it was when it peaked in Wotlk because the monoculture has been dying for a long time, the novelty of a real game with real people online is long gone, considering most every game that comes out has online multiplayer shoved into it nowadays. And a key component of wows early popularity was how it functioned as a glorified chat room for a lot of people but now there's Twitter or discord or reddit, your social media of choice really, to fill that niche of meeting and talking to people

That's fair and I don't think that's an expectation one should have. We can't turn around time. But the dropoff from Legion to now is very noticeable and sudden. It's not natural. BfA and SL did massive damage to the game's lore, so a huge chunk of people which were invested into that, many of which also made content around that, have either stopped caring or quit. Then DF and now TWW honestly failed to get them back, or at least in any significant number. And then you have the fact that whenever WoW goes viral is for people to mock it

Blizzard can very well continue with characters like Faerin, Dagran, Khadgar in a pink wheelchair, but the truth is that nobody is lining up to play the game for that. They can virtue signal and pat themselves on the back for thinking that they have saved the world all they want, but these things just don't sell. WoW is just not exciting anymore, and that's an issue

MoP was pretty meh when it was revealed, but then the WoD cinematic dropped and got everyone pumped and hype again. That's what WoW is missing right now. That energy, cool characters, big cool moments and cool cinematics that get people excited