Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[vindicator782]

I wish Tyrande and Malfurion were written like they were in WC3. They just don't know what to do with them, and any time they use them it's really unsatisfying.

Ever notice Malfurion is either trapped or not present? They literally cannot use him in any story ever - he's probably the most powerful being on Azeroth

If BFA was actually written with accurate powerscaling - the Horde would never have gotten past Ashenvale

[Vakir]

Clerics channeling divine power from their deity is different from said deity manifesting on material plane to block ballista shosts with her hands and squish orcs under her foot.

Correct, but a major crisis of faith to Tyrande was her lack of power manifested and relative silence despite being the harbinger of her wrath.

She didn't ask for her to materialize in full. No one did. Otherwise there'd be just as much about that with, say, Archimonde.

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I think it all makes sense when you realize Elune making the Night Elves immortal protectors of nature was not a reward: It was a punishment. They drank of the Well "too greedily, and too deep." Or Illidan trying to make a second Sunwell after the first almost destroyed the planet. On a macro level, we had a single generation who fight against it but the Night Elves as a whole put the planet in more danger than anyone; existential harm that would last generations.

I mean, that's a cool theory and everything, but it's not how the race and the culture around it was set up and mostly played out.

It would also be the kind of thing she'd say explicitly in the same cutscene in which she said oopsie I forgot to text sis as that being her intension.

Instead, what was once said to be the strongest entity in Warcraft by Metzen circa 2004ish before all this nonsense forgot she left the stove on.

Ever notice Malfurion is either trapped or not present? They literally cannot use him in any story ever - he's probably the most powerful being on Azeroth

If BFA was actually written with accurate powerscaling - the Horde would never have gotten past Ashenvale

Yep. This, too, is an important factor in myriad poor writing decisions.

Notice how they didn't kill or neuter the very male near demigod arguably highest among all faction leaders...well, not anymore than they already have been since 2004.

[Santandame]

It's the Prequels vs. the Sequels all over again. A cynical nothing plot with zero planning and an underwritten female lead doesn't change that the Prequels were dogshit consumed by 7 year olds that are angry adults now. One sucking doesn't make the other good.

I resent this. Revenge of the Sith is a top 5 Star Wars film, possibly even top 3. Midichlorians and Sio Bibble dialogue aside, The Phantom Menace was a lot of fun. Of course they’re no Andor or Clone Wars Season 7 but they’re still great fun.

On topic - I like Garrosh because he is an excellent villain (as excellent as you can be within the WoW stratosphere and with these writers, past and present) who has a complete, satisfying character arc. The only other characters that come close for me are Azshara, Gul’dan and Jaina.

[Hitei]

Ever notice Malfurion is either trapped or not present? They literally cannot use him in any story ever - he's probably the most powerful being on Azeroth.

He's pretty far down the list.

[GeometryWizard]

IMO people care more about their favorite characters not appearing lame and weak more than seeing them at their maximum power scaling all the time. Look at how Varian goes out surrounded by trash mobs and taking several down with him and getting blown up by the main villain after spitting in his face while Vol'jin does nothing and gets gutted by a single trash mob he isn't looking at. People like how Varian went out and hate how Vol'jin did

I think people wouldn't be complaining that Malfurion doesn't show up and instantly 1-shot every villain on screen, they'd be happy if he just showed up for a few key moments commanding the armies of nature or summoning a huge storm to wipe out a big group of mobs during a zone finale. Alleria is lame because they've crowned her as the main character of TWW and she does nothing but fail about Xal'atath except the one time she finally hits her arrow which is just reliant on Xal'atath being cocky, then in the patches she goes right back to being ineffectual and useless

That's the problem with almost all the cast right now. We spend so much time listening to them talk and whine and you're lucky to get one quest where they're auto-attacking mobs with you. Cutscenes used to mostly be used for big epic moments and now they're almost all just characters talking to each other so the cutscene team can flex how good the facial animation work is for a game this old. Blizzard used to be way better at doing simple action which endeared us to many of the characters and now they mostly do awful drama and introspective writing which makes most of the characters seem weak-willed and unable to do anything

[Cheezits]

He's pretty far down the list.

It's probably Azshara > Keepers > Aspects > Cenarius > Malfurion > the rest. Or something along those lines.

[Darkarath]

I wish Tyrande and Malfurion were written like they were in WC3. They just don't know what to do with them, and any time they use them it's really unsatisfying.

Agreed.

These were two of the most beloved characters of Warcraft 3 and nowadays they are a bad joke. Especially Malfurion, although Tyrande had awful moments too.

Guess that now they will leave them in peace in Amirdrassil for a long long time. Honestly is the best that they can do with them.

I wish that they would have the guts to kill more characters. Azeroth is in constant strife and basically none of the main characters dies. Feels unrealistic.

One of the reasons of Legion's success was that very early on they set the stakes high not only by having our enemies destroy our armies, but also our main, beloved leaders.

[Santandame]

I think the MSQ should be a bit longer/more in depth but this is definitely better than how it used to be. I am sick of being forced to do sidetracking in the MSQ like Narthalas Academy, the jade mine in Mists, Chens adventure with the farmers, Gorgrond's ping ponging all over the place, Bradensbrook which was mentioned, etc.

Narthalas Academy wasn’t side tracking it’s literally integral to the MSQ of Azsuna which is tracking down the Tidestone.

[Vakir]

I resent this. Revenge of the Sith is a top 5 Star Wars film, possibly even top 3. Midichlorians and Sio Bibble dialogue aside, The Phantom Menace was a lot of fun. Of course they’re no Andor or Clone Wars Season 7 but they’re still great fun.

Call it a bit of an overcorrection on my part.

There's been this weird revisionism that everything is suddenly better and without the overall weaknesses that have existed and that were widely problems on release because if something else is weak in one way, then surely that means the alternative is great.

It's mainly to illustrate that time dictates a lot of how people recall this stuff and that there's this weird reactive comparison that the poor quality of one thing inherently elevates the other, when it doesn't.

I'm irritated that people are so avoidant of the reality that the prequels have the same problems we talked about over 20 years ago and so did Warcraft writing and lore.

And that sometimes the reason for Rey Skywalker isn't Kathleen Kennedy under your bed, it's just an evil corporation that wants girls to buy toys. The audience desired rather than the one they have already.

[Cheezits]

Narthalas Academy wasn’t side tracking it’s literally integral to the MSQ of Azsuna which is tracking down the Tidestone.

Yes, my point was that it shouldn't be, and they shouldn't have made mandatory Hogwarts-themed minigames tied into the MSQ. It could've been written very differently.

[GeometryWizard]

Agreed.

These were two of the most beloved characters of Warcraft 3 and nowadays they are a bad joke. Especially Malfurion, although Tyrande had awful moments too.

Guess that now they will leave them in peace in Amirdrassil for a long long time. Honestly is the best that they can do with them.

I wish that they would have the guts to kill more characters. Azeroth is in constant strife and basically none of the main characters dies. Feels unrealistic.

One of the reasons of Legion's success was that very early on they set the stakes high not only by having our enemies destroy our armies, but also our main, beloved leaders.

It's the pendulum swinging in the other direction from how it used to be. A decade ago they were killing other major characters and blowing up cities left and right even if it made no sense and was a mistake in the long term. Now they're afraid to kill anyone off at all and it makes the plot feel toothless. Look at how nobody died in Dalaran except a few vendor NPCs and the epilogue questchain is telling you to get over it and move on rather than it being any kind of lingering tragedy in the plot, it's like the opposite of how Teldrassil was handled. I think Senegos has been the most notable death since SL which is just sad

The story only has so much gas in it and shoving butchered legacy characters in people's faces is wearing off fast. They need to give more spotlight to the new characters and actually give them different personalities or else people are going to get very tired of everyone being the same naive idealist with interchangeable dialogue. I feel like Arator is going to be a huge bomb with how prominent they're making him

[Hitei]

IMO people care more about their favorite characters not appearing lame and weak more than seeing them at their maximum power scaling all the time. Look at how Varian goes out surrounded by trash mobs and taking several down with him and getting blown up by the main villain after spitting in his face while Vol'jin does nothing and gets gutted by a single trash mob he isn't looking at. People like how Varian went out and hate how Vol'jin did

I think people wouldn't be complaining that Malfurion doesn't show up and instantly 1-shot every villain on screen, they'd be happy if he just showed up for a few key moments commanding the armies of nature or summoning a huge storm to wipe out a big group of mobs during a zone finale.

I don't think your logic is flawed, but this also just isn't a tenable approach.

The first issue is just that it turns every single event into a weird same-y hodgepodge. Someone mentioned the Aspects getting their powers back last expansion and not being around to help fight Xal--the problem is that this is true of every conflict, reasonably, the Aspects would show up to every single major fight. As would like a dozen neutral mortal factions and the Horde and Alliance in force with their airships, and the Vindicaar, and there's no reason that the Fel Hammer and Acherus couldn't be flown to any major battlefield and it's just a huge mess. It worked in Legion as a one off gimmick, but having all the class halls and various third party factions, and plethora of very powerful individuals who are on our side participate in every fight where they logically should becomes nonsense very quickly. So instead they stick to very occasional usage of people against threats hyper relevant to those people.

The second issue, and it's been a while so it's not surprising that people have forgotten, but players absolutely hated having characters around actually being useful and acting in key moments. It felt like being KS'd constantly. I would much rather have sad Anduin working out his trauma than deal with another round of fighting my way all the way through the Warsong's forces in Nagrand with Yrel, after three expansions of dealing with Garrosh, only to have Thrall show up and go "I call 1v1!"

[Cheezits]

I just realized, but two of the paladins acting villainously during the MSQ are two of the Lightblinded Vanguard: the Kul Tiran I've mentioned and a Blood Elf. So that explains why the former is so prominent despite being a new OC.

[vindicator782]

He's pretty far down the list.

In terms of allied characters; not really, of all faction leaders he's absolutely the most powerful

He's almost god level powerful

[Santandame]

In terms of allied characters; not really, of all faction leaders he's absolutely the most powerful

He's almost god level powerful

I was always under the belief that Velen was the most powerful faction leader.

[GeometryWizard]

I don't think your logic is flawed, but this also just isn't a tenable approach.

The first issue is just that it turns every single event into a weird same-y hodgepodge. Someone mentioned the Aspects getting their powers back last expansion and not being around to help fight Xal--the problem is that this is true of every conflict, reasonably, the Aspects would show up to every single major fight. As would like a dozen neutral mortal factions and the Horde and Alliance in force with their airships, and the Vindicaar, and there's no reason that the Fel Hammer and Acherus couldn't be flown to any major battlefield and it's just a huge mess. It worked in Legion as a one off gimmick, but having all the class halls and various third party factions, and plethora of very powerful individuals who are on our side participate in every fight where they logically should becomes nonsense very quickly. So instead they stick to very occasional usage of people against threats hyper relevant to those people.

The second issue, and it's been a while so it's not surprising that people have forgotten, but players absolutely hated having characters around actually being useful and acting in key moments. It felt like being KS'd constantly. I would much rather have sad Anduin working out his trauma than deal with another round of fighting my way all the way through the Warsong's forces in Nagrand with Yrel, after three expansions of dealing with Garrosh, only to have Thrall show up and go "I call 1v1!"

I think that first point stems from the problem of the world becoming too idyllic with too many major threats removed and there only being conflict at a single point on the map that as of late is also an immediately world-threatening entity that everyone should and would immediately unify against. We already saw in DF how they bungled it both ways with Malfurion not being present for defending the Emerald Dream for a plotline that went nowhere but then we have every single major character all come out of portals at the very end which just cheapens the story

For the Aspects specifically, it would have been handled better if they had gotten their powers back before the end of the expansion and then they're using them in the final patch and raid. The story would have to be a lot different but you know what I mean. That way there is a tangible delivery on the promise of their powers returning meaning something and people wouldn't have it in the back of their minds as much instead of now where it's basically a lingering IOU

To your second point it's more about execution than anything. You can have key moments that don't always result in isolated duels between characters. Velen gets his brief but impactful ending with Kil'jaeden even if the players got the kill, or go look at how hype the comments for the cutscene where Anduin recovers Varian's swords are. And really they can only do so much to include the player in the end, we can't speak in cutscenes and the main characters pretending we're their friends has always been awkward. Some people may hate it but I'd personally rather the focus go to the full-fledged characters with us being in the background

[Enrif]

here we go, Beta on 11.11.

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com.../news/24245100

[Throren]

Ya I'm surprised, I've seen literally no mention or coverage online anywhere of the max level campaign, which afaik part of was made available this last build, unless I mis-read

[Vakir]

cut

I do think it's notable that the Aspects and the druid of all druids are absent during the fight for the Worldsoul, especially the former given that they were empowered by Azeroth herself at the end of DF.

But for what it's worth, that was a Danuser creation and the new boss isn't him. Still a very relevant conflict for their theming.

Either way, we need everyone to show up at some point if this is truly a grand finale of the last 20 years.

For the kill steal potential of participating leaders, I think it depends on the intention and context. There wasn't as much hate for Illidan in the Gul'dan kill because it was pretty much just a formality. He's so beaten down that clearly we did the work and it's largely just fun fanservice and it's poetic that he also gets disenchanted like Varian.

But both times Thrall pulled it, it's just so indulgent to him specifically. Everything we did to Deathwing and everything we did to Garrosh in the Mists encounter feel completely irrelevant to either fate. We got some tentacles and got some armor off, but the lion's share of the damage was a ki blast made of quintuple dragon power.

It's all in execution and it requires careful implementation. ...so basically they're screwed.

The nadir is the Sylvanas encounter, though. You could not even tell me anything happened to her across 3 phases and 2-3 intermissions with the cooperation of three heroes, two of which have had history of being pretty beefy.

What occurs could have even if we weren't there. The entire raid encounter...is for the reward of having the privilege for our characters watching something rather than presumably hear about it from a random guard in Oribos.

Still mind blowing.

I was always under the belief that Velen was the most powerful faction leader.

He's also a victim of doing next to nothing. At least he's busy with a new flying city.

[JDBlou]

I just realized, but two of the paladins acting villainously during the MSQ are two of the Lightblinded Vanguard: the Kul Tiran I've mentioned and a Blood Elf. So that explains why the former is so prominent despite being a new OC.

I was under the impression the "Kul Tiran" was Arathi who from what I can see is named "General Amias Bellamy". https://www.wowhead.com/beta/npc=250...-amias-bellamy

Must say I'm a sucker for these council fights where they have a class and all its specs as the basis for the fight, like with Soul Hunters. A priest fight with a Holy, Disc, and Shadow priest could have some interesting encounter design. Shaman and Warlock Councils could be fun as well.