Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Pyrophax]

I'm not claiming anything, just speculating.

Where do I get all this from? Regarding content, Midnight will be the first expansion, probably since...MoP? That doesn't have massive changes during its development (that we know of). For me DF was really close to Legion in content, and IMO it's very clear that DF had changes to fit the WSS.

Regarding Ula'tek, I don't think that a full Troll patch fits very well in Midnight, when the main themes are Void and Light. Also, the fact that we can see the zone right there from the start of the expansion is kind of unprecedented if it were to be the 12.1 patch zone. Guess that the closest thing is Tanaan Jungle in WoD, which if I recall correctly if was supossed to be a starting zone but we all know the disaster that WoD was.

As I said before, though, I think that there's the possibility of Ula'tek being 12.1 if it comes along with more revamped zones, as the mysterious loading screen doesn't fit anywhere but would fit perfectly with that situation.

I think if we will get 12.1 as Ula'tek - main villian will be Void cultists and Ctraxxi general ressurection, not pure Amani.

[allegrian]

Midnight looks like a perfect scenario to get more paladin races. They've been teasing night elf paladins since legion, and many Kul Tiran paladins since DF. Even void elf paladins were shown.

The thing is they really need to fix the kul tiran male animation for Wake of Ashes, it looks broken if you use it while transformed to kul tiran.

[Scyth]

Silver Covenant finally, and they're being attacked by the Sunreavers.

Good, hope they get wiped out (the SC that is)

Not sure how I feel about another Troll raid tbh but if they can make it a bit more Fel or Void themed then I can get behind it. Though it's probably poison not fel, given we will be dealing with a snake.

[Nymrohd]

Midnight looks like a perfect scenario to get more paladin races. They've been teasing night elf paladins since legion, and many Kul Tiran paladins since DF. Even void elf paladins were shown.

The thing is they really need to fix the kul tiran male animation for Wake of Ashes, it looks broken if you use it while transformed to kul tiran.

Is it better than Tyr appearing in DF? Paladins will happen when they can spare the resources for them, not when it makes sense in the story imo.

[allegrian]

Is it better than Tyr appearing in DF?

The Tyr and Tyr's guard storyline was abandoned/dropped mid DF, it became just worthless fluff by the end, like the overall titan-focused story they were teasing at the begginning of DF.

Midnight base patch is literally a light vs void expansion which features basically al paladin and priest characters and all the Paladin order hall characters + Legion's Army of the light. Many of the zones are about the light, Arator and Turalyon. It's basically a paladin expansion for now, both for heroes and villains.

[Enrif]

I meant the portals, sorry. Mostly because Loamm, Netherstorm are also there and Arcantina is an extradimensional nexus so it makes sense for it to have portals to a lot of places.

Loamm leads to Zaralek, where the shadowflame is and also the raid that has us first shown the cosmic void. Netherstorm is the place where Dimensius was defeated in TBC, but also important due to tempest keep an Kael'thas. So, i could see story relevance, but it could also fit for the Arcantina, at least for Netherstorm.

[Nymrohd]

Loamm leads to Zaralek, where the shadowflame is and also the raid that has us first shown the cosmic void. Netherstorm is the place where Dimensius was defeated in TBC, but also important due to tempest keep an Kael'thas. So, i could see story relevance, but it could also fit for the Arcantina, at least for Netherstorm.

Also, plenty of other data does point to every type of elf coming together. Which is how most of us here interpreted Elven tribes unifying before faction stuff became relevant again. I just think a portal hub with all those portals would be a) damn weird, b) too useful.

- - - Updated - - -

So I am doing one of every class in Remix and I remember back in Legion thinking the Monk class questline being very weak. And while the villain and the way it is resolved is silly, it is one of the very few questlines that actually shows the impact of the Legion invasion in the world at large.

I think they are using the Arcantina to tie in with housing; it is why everyone is tired of adventuring and wants a place to call home in there after all. But I wish they had made the Void invasion impactful and had more quests about it affecting any place other than Quel'danas. The threat seems laughable compared e.g. to what happened to K'aresh when entire cities were wiped from existence and just Dimensius' presence was killing everything

Heck Eversong seems threatened more by the Lightbloom than by the Void.

[allegrian]

I don't see a point to the "uniting the elves" stuff if it doesn't affect the playable elves, like making all elves neutral or something like that.

Or at least making the horde-exclusive silvermoon zone accessible to alliance elves.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, plenty of other data does point to every type of elf coming together. Which is how most of us here interpreted Elven tribes unifying before faction stuff became relevant again. I just think a portal hub with all those portals would be a) damn weird, b) too useful.

- - - Updated - - -

So I am doing one of every class in Remix and I remember back in Legion thinking the Monk class questline being very weak. And while the villain and the way it is resolved is silly, it is one of the very few questlines that actually shows the impact of the Legion invasion in the world at large.

I think they are using the Arcantina to tie in with housing; it is why everyone is tired of adventuring and wants a place to call home in there after all. But I wish they had made the Void invasion impactful and had more quests about it affecting any place other than Quel'danas. The threat seems laughable compared e.g. to what happened to K'aresh when entire cities were wiped from existence and just Dimensius' presence was killing everything

Heck Eversong seems threatened more by the Lightbloom than by the Void.

It looks like the void stuff is sidelined by "light bad" stuff. The world soul saga main story and themes are all over the place, if this story still sucks during TLT I may seriously consider leaving wow, considering they have sold the saga as "we are seriously trying to tell a good story now"

[Enrif]

I don't see a point to the "uniting the elves" stuff if it doesn't affect the playable elves, like making all elves neutral or something like that.

Or at least making the horde-exclusive silvermoon zone accessible to alliance elves.

while i would love that, i think the biggest hurdle is the high elves and especially the night elves.

Blood Elves don't have any "real" issues with the alliance, they were on the verge to come to the alliance multiple times already.
Void Elves are just Blood Elves, so they are one and the same people, only divided because they chose to do forbidden research, which might be helpful now or irrelevant after midnight.
Nightborne were helped the same amount from horde and alliance. And after Legion there wasn't any hostility between these.

High Elves are the first that are a bit problematic. As seen in the screenshots, they very much still remember the attrocities by orcs, trolls and undead and would have a hard time to reconcile. On top of that, the leader of them, Veressa, lost her husband Rhonin due to the hordes action when they bombed Theramore. There needs a lot of talking here.

But

Night Elves without a doubt, have the biggest and most justifiable reason to never ally with the horde. Teldrasssil. And even before Teldrassil, the continued issues in Ashenvale made things already tense. Now, with Shandris in charge now, and seemingly helping with the Darkwell, there might be first steps to reconiliation. But i can't see any night elf, for a long time, be wearing the hordes colors. At best, a split of group like the highborne night elves perhaps.

But i don't see that any time soon. Especially for the elves that are currently on the alliance side. Someday perhaps, if we get a century long timeskip, maybe. But the horde harmed the elves too much as that they would be neutral enough to go to the hordes side.

[allegrian]

while i would love that, i think the biggest hurdle is the high elves and especially the night elves.

Blood Elves don't have any "real" issues with the alliance, they were on the verge to come to the alliance multiple times already.
Void Elves are just Blood Elves, so they are one and the same people, only divided because they chose to do forbidden research, which might be helpful now or irrelevant after midnight.
Nightborne were helped the same amount from horde and alliance. And after Legion there wasn't any hostility between these.

High Elves are the first that are a bit problematic. As seen in the screenshots, they very much still remember the attrocities by orcs, trolls and undead and would have a hard time to reconcile. On top of that, the leader of them, Veressa, lost her husband Rhonin due to the hordes action when they bombed Theramore. There needs a lot of talking here.

But

Night Elves without a doubt, have the biggest and most justifiable reason to never ally with the horde. Teldrasssil. And even before Teldrassil, the continued issues in Ashenvale made things already tense. Now, with Shandris in charge now, and seemingly helping with the Darkwell, there might be first steps to reconiliation. But i can't see any night elf, for a long time, be wearing the hordes colors. At best, a split of group like the highborne night elves perhaps.

But i don't see that any time soon. Especially for the elves that are currently on the alliance side. Someday perhaps, if we get a century long timeskip, maybe. But the horde harmed the elves too much as that they would be neutral enough to go to the hordes side.

They could take the NE out of the equation and it would work.

If they merged void, blood and high elved in a single neutral race, you can customize and headcanon your flavour of elf and which faction he's more affiliated with.

Most importantly, if they make Nightborne Neutral, the alliance will gain a new AR and the Horde would get a free empty slot for amani.

[Hearthfinder]

It would be pretty funny if Ula'Tek ended up being the 'crooked serpent,' or its avatar, perhaps slain long ago but soon to be resurrected.

The crooked serpent eats stars, the prophecy of Renilash mentions the last star fading, and what's more one of the old Argus-related cultists pamphlets mentions the following:

An emerald sun dawns in the vault of the heavens, but it casts no shadow.

Possibly just referring to Argus, but maybe retrofit to be about the temple Queen Craishae visited in the story, where the 'heart of the world and the eye of heaven meet'?

I dunno, but maybe Sargeras is about to maybe a triumphant comeback or something.

[GeometryWizard]

It looks like the void stuff is sidelined by "light bad" stuff. The world soul saga main story and themes are all over the place, if this story still sucks during TLT I may seriously consider leaving wow, considering they have sold the saga as "we are seriously trying to tell a good story now"

It's like they got bored of writing about the void before they even started work on the void expansion and that's the majority of it is Light bad now. Even the Voidstorm story is all about how Lothraxion is too extreme. I feel like a lot of this probably comes from this new democratic writing council that Metzen mentioned last year. Instead of one coherent story dictated by someone they all vote on a bunch of disconnected events and jumble them all together in a complete mess. This Light bad story probably won't even have a real conclusion either and instead just end in another limp half-finished story before they jump onto the next story they obsess over for a few months in the office before getting bored with

Ever since the lawsuit all they're done is prioritize employees being happy no matter what and it's resulted in a writing team that doesn't actually want to work on the WoW setting which is why they keep changing the entire focus of the story every year or so. I think Metzen is a washed up hack and it's so obvious there's zero real leadership on their writing staff anymore. Even if you like the current writing you can't even get invested into it because it's probably just going to totally change within a year or two like the pic below. It's so obvious SL was a reckoning for the actual gameplay devs but the writers just circled the wagons and have convinced upper management all bad PR for the game coming from their decisions isn't their fault

[Pyrophax]

To thoose who looked at Void Elf stuff from Midnight - are canonical class choiced changed for Void Elves? Before Midnight I have Sub rogue as most "shadow-infused" melee spec and warlock for caster.
After anounce of Midnight and Devouer spec of DH - Sub rogue falls from the spot, replaced by DH, I think? Void user melee spec with all that cosmic stuff.
For caster I have Warlock with Affly, but warlock more and more falling into Fel without much shadow. And Void Elf using fel without Void just sound strange.
Shadow Priest have more holy stuff to me to be canonical accurate. Even with Voidreaver herospec. But it can be discussed and questioned.
So I think mage is much better option? Even without using Void - Umbric is mage after all and mage is scholar archtype, that fits better? Frostmage even had Shadowfrost bolt back in a day.

[Lahis]

After anounce of Midnight and Devouer spec of DH - Sub rogue falls from the spot, replaced by DH, I think? Void user melee spec with all that cosmic stuff.

Too bad Demon Hunters do not have Void themed melee spec.

[Pyrophax]

Too bad Demon Hunters do not have Void themed melee spec.

Semi-ranged DH work for me too. I create pairs of alts - 1 melee and 1 ranged for each race (for some races - more then 2) and choose to be more lore accurate as possible. VE are weird spot for now - paladins don't have Void skin yet to create, casters are far away from Void as cosmic power in a way Void Elves use it.

[allegrian]

To thoose who looked at Void Elf stuff from Midnight - are canonical class choiced changed for Void Elves? Before Midnight I have Sub rogue as most "shadow-infused" melee spec and warlock for caster.
After anounce of Midnight and Devouer spec of DH - Sub rogue falls from the spot, replaced by DH, I think? Void user melee spec with all that cosmic stuff.
For caster I have Warlock with Affly, but warlock more and more falling into Fel without much shadow. And Void Elf using fel without Void just sound strange.
Shadow Priest have more holy stuff to me to be canonical accurate. Even with Voidreaver herospec. But it can be discussed and questioned.
So I think mage is much better option? Even without using Void - Umbric is mage after all and mage is scholar archtype, that fits better? Frostmage even had Shadowfrost bolt back in a day.

Void elves get the Mage as their default class in the character creation menu

[Pyrophax]

Void elves get the Mage as their default class in the character creation menu

That is a reason I strugle with this. All 3 caster classes are not quite there for Void Elves.
Warlocks are using fel, not Void. Even shadow spells are canonically used via fel magic.
Priests use Light magic, even Shadow Priests. Canonically Void Elves are unable to do so.
Mages have 0 ties with Void, aside long forgotten Shadowfrost Bolt from Cata (if I remember correctly). And even elemental magic they use with Arcane.

I have hopes for DH, as Devourer work good as Void Skin for Fel class.
Sub rogue use shadow magic too, but its not like "Void" shadow magic.
Paladin can work if Void skin will be introduced (there are examples of it ingame already)

[allegrian]

That is a reason I strugle with this. All 3 caster classes are not quite there for Void Elves.
Warlocks are using fel, not Void. Even shadow spells are canonically used via fel magic.
Priests use Light magic, even Shadow Priests. Canonically Void Elves are unable to do so.
Mages have 0 ties with Void, aside long forgotten Shadowfrost Bolt from Cata (if I remember correctly). And even elemental magic they use with Arcane.

I have hopes for DH, as Devourer work good as Void Skin for Fel class.
Sub rogue use shadow magic too, but its not like "Void" shadow magic.
Paladin can work if Void skin will be introduced (there are examples of it ingame already)

Where is it told that void elves cannot cast the light? I think that void elves are some of the best options for priest as you can have a holy high elves that turn to the void when using shadow spec. There were high elf priests in W3.

[Pyrophax]

Where is it told that void elves cannot cast the light? I think that void elves are some of the best options for priest as you can have a holy high elves that turn to the void when using shadow spec. There were high elf priests in W3.

And thats why I posted in Speculation thread.
In one way - Alleria can't touch Turalion bc their opposite powers. VE are unwelcome in Stormwind Cathedral. Void beng antithesis of Light. I have not seeing Void Elf priests in Telogrus or anywhere else. Void Elf researchers from Telogrus are either warlocks or mages. Shadow Priests are too Old Gody and not Voidy.
On other side - Disc priest is just that - using both Light and Shadow at once.

[Lady Atia]

To thoose who looked at Void Elf stuff from Midnight - are canonical class choiced changed for Void Elves? Before Midnight I have Sub rogue as most "shadow-infused" melee spec and warlock for caster.
After anounce of Midnight and Devouer spec of DH - Sub rogue falls from the spot, replaced by DH, I think? Void user melee spec with all that cosmic stuff.
For caster I have Warlock with Affly, but warlock more and more falling into Fel without much shadow. And Void Elf using fel without Void just sound strange.
Shadow Priest have more holy stuff to me to be canonical accurate. Even with Voidreaver herospec. But it can be discussed and questioned.
So I think mage is much better option? Even without using Void - Umbric is mage after all and mage is scholar archtype, that fits better? Frostmage even had Shadowfrost bolt back in a day.

What the.

There ...

... there are no such things as "canonical class choices" lol. Stop confusing everyone with your headcanon please.