Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[JDBlou]

I think it is perfectly fine to have a Light bad angle in Midnight. I also think it is weird that it feels Light Bad is more prominent than Void Bad though.

That said, I've heard a lot about the main story of the zones but almost nothing of the side quests. Historically, the best lore is in the side quests.

I think that's a little bit of a hasty generalisation. 2/3 launch raids are about how bad the void is. We have 2 bosses, Lothraxion in the dungeon and the Lightblind Vanguard in the raid and some Voidstorm zone quests to seed the idea that the Light when conviction outweighs reason, becomes bad. Especially aggravated by being in a place that comes close to the Void manifest in our reality.

We've had 20+ years of Warcraft about how bad the void can be, it only feels egregious because Light extremism has never had much focus outside of the Scarlet Crusade so the sudden upswell may feel disconcerting, but they have to get their pieces in place for the Arathi Empire expansion/ "the final battle between Light and Shadow" one can assume the last patch will focus on.

[Nymrohd]

other than blandly sauntering around persuading the people who can be persuaded and killing the undefined caricature baddies who can't.

I mean . . . isn't that another form of fascism?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

In a live service game this was always destined to be a bald faced lie. Lol Metzen. We even have the Legion coming back.

I still think its' funny if they think Cosmic Renilash is a better sales pitch than in Quel'thalas and at the fucking Sunwell. But, hey I guess they truly do not like the Old World probably reminds them of Afrasiabi or something.

But yeah, this whole thing was so completely unnecessary. But, again maybe they have second thoughts once they're facing the wall by the end of The Last Titan or they just are holding out for Classic+ and 14.0 to reset fan resentment.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I mean . . . isn't that another form of fascism?

Au contraire, it’s Anduinism. You can rest assured that anybody who stands against its trusty vanguard will have their faces smashed in hard enough with the villain bat that our peacenik heroes will sit around mourning how there was no other solution the moment the baddies invariably get curbstomped under the force of two faceless, personality-stripped superpowers. The narrative itself will ensure they are fully irredeemable to make sure our heroes are entirely guiltless and vindicated.

Actually, I’d argue with their focus on assimilation, the Anduinite Internationale is more precisely analogous the Borg with Teletubbies morality.

[milkmustache]

I still think its' funny if they think Cosmic Renilash is a better sales pitch than in Quel'thalas and at the fucking Sunwell. But, hey I guess they truly do not like the Old World probably reminds them of Afrasiabi or something.

But we have literally zero indication that there will be a "Cosmic Renilash". We don't even know the full details of the ending of the Sunwell raid.

We are filling in the blanks for a story that is still in the process of being told here.

[Hitei]

I still think its' funny if they think Cosmic Renilash is a better sales pitch than in Quel'thalas and at the fucking Sunwell. But, hey I guess they truly do not like the Old World probably reminds them of Afrasiabi or something.

But yeah, this whole thing was so completely unnecessary. But, again maybe they have second thoughts once they're facing the wall by the end of The Last Titan or they just are holding out for Classic+ and 14.0 to reset fan resentment.

...resentment over what? The entire Void plane not being destroyed in the expansion launch and first tier? You guys always make everything so dramatic.

[Vakir]

I think Blizzard is owed its due for communicating the bold and groundbreaking moral that corporate leaders will, entirely of their own volition, reform in ways that may undercut their short-term profit for ethical reasons, and it neatly coheres with the End of History-style global trend to world peace brought on by the shared understanding we all benefit more when we're friends.

I'm continuously impressed with how CDev has boldly endeavored to give us the worst of both worlds by aggressively scorching the setting into compliance under the guiding desert sun of California liberalism while ensuring that anything that could pass for the commentary, heft, or nuance needed to make that kind of imposition work is smothered in its crib in the name of ensuring bland and universal Twitter-compliance.

This is such a breath of fresh air to read after the inanity of whinging about misandry being the culprit from some of the criticism.

Yup, it's basically this. For some reason there's this belief that things need to be bland and conflict devoid of nuance. Warcraft has had this simplicity more often than it hasn't but it's a lot more transparent than it has been in the past in terms of presentation or preachiness.

It's weird, because the resolution of a lot of this stuff - the goblins discussion as an example - isn't just needlessly flavorless, it actually undermines, heh, the potential of any future stories in a live service game.

[Xilurm]

https://x.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1984241152321814609

Well FFXIV just did what many WoW players really want so I wonder if Blizz will follow through.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

But we have literally zero indication that there will be a "Cosmic Renilash". We don't even know the full details of the ending of the Sunwell raid.

We are filling in the blanks for a story that is still in the process of being told here.

Well, then we have to assume that its' at the Sunwell which as we've seen they re-route everything through Voidstorm and then end it in the Final Base Raid with Quel'danas in which text still leaves out the fate of the Sunwell as either still corrupted or returning back to its Sunwell state.

Obviously, the presentation style I still heavily disagree with as we just created a black blob in the sky to take away anything interesting that could've taken place on Old World ground.

https://x.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1984241152321814609

Well FFXIV just did what many WoW players really want so I wonder if Blizz will follow through.

Well, we all know how much they despise FFXIV so its' going to be interesting to see what wins out whether they want to do it just to spite FFXIV or they won't budge because of "class silhouette" discourse being their foot in the ground.

[Santandame]

That + black blood stuff was both tied to an early storyline that was scrapped, is why. Which is why Khaz Algar and the Haranir were teased in Dragonflight. They are one and the same issue.

I remember Khaz Algar being teased in Dragonflight but not the Haranir. Do you have a reference?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I remember Khaz Algar being teased in Dragonflight but not the Haranir. Do you have a reference?

Khaz Algar, sure. Haranir or Harronir were not Dragonflight but first popped up during The War Within with the datamining of the Race and the datamining of the Rootlands location. Again, it still doesn't change the fact that Harandar is a fucking mess and the ghost of our previous Narrative Lead still haunts the game to present day.

[Nymrohd]

I remember Khaz Algar being teased in Dragonflight but not the Haranir. Do you have a reference?

Probably this

It is said that much later, as the world entered a new age, mysterious guardians arrived who dedicated their lives to protecting the roots.

https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Legend_of_Elun%27Ahir

[Enrif]

https://x.com/FF_XIV_EN/status/1984241152321814609

Well FFXIV just did what many WoW players really want so I wonder if Blizz will follow through.

While this is awesome, they still have to figure out a better way for storage of glamour pieces. When they can copy the appearance collection of WoW, they have won their endgame

Well, we all know how much they despise FFXIV so its' going to be interesting to see what wins out whether they want to do it just to spite FFXIV or they won't budge because of "class silhouette" discourse being their foot in the ground.

i hope blizz sees that and follows course. They are anyway working on changing the transmog system to be slot based instead of item based, and we have so many silly mogs that the old "class silhouette" thing is a none thing. Heck, my DK right now looks like a paladin! They should just rip the cord and unleash player creativity.

[Hitei]

Eonar/Freya sending some people to guard the roots of Elun'ahir is what I assume ended up becoming the Haranir?

She didn't send them, they just ambiguously arrived.

[Nymrohd]

She didn't send them, they just ambiguously arrived.

Yeah I edited, corrected and added the direct quote

[Hitei]

I think that at this point there's not enough value in holding the transmog armor type restrictions to justify the loss of customization potential. It feels extremely at odds with their recent pushes for more player agency in customization and expression.

The more contentious question is do legacy tier sets have their appearances completely untethered from their classes?

[Xilurm]

Well, we all know how much they despise FFXIV so its' going to be interesting to see what wins out whether they want to do it just to spite FFXIV or they won't budge because of "class silhouette" discourse being their foot in the ground.

Personally I don't like this much. I prefer if there are outfits that some other classes can't wear.

[Santandame]

Which is a separate issue. But "Light Bad" remains kinda reductive.

Unless people mean "we're going to have a Light antagonist at some point in this expansion" when they say that. But that's ...both very different and also already true with several bosses.

Edit: Eh, I wouldn't say Aszuna is irrelevant. It's still the major center of elf society we're visiting in the Broken Isles, we're still dealing partly with Naga who are aligned with someone who was buddies with the Legion during the War of the Ancients, etc.

Highmountain stands...as absolute crap, yeah.

The Feltotem storyline should have been given to the Drogbar instead. Dargrul’s storyline had very little background to it. Having the Drogbar as close allies to the HM Tauren with a Dreadlord or even Kil’jaeden influencing Dargrul would have felt a lot more coherent with the Legion plot. Whilst I liked Highmountain enough, it did feel very filler with helping the different clans with their various threats.

In fact, KJ or a Dreadlord influencing the Drogbar, Bloodtotem and Harpies to all come together under the banner of the Legion to sweep over the Broken Isles from the north would have gone a lot better.

The more I think of it, Tichondrious in this role would have been ideal. He did very little in Legion apart from appear in the Nighthold. It also makes a lot of sense as he had already shown up in the Highmountain storyline in the War of the Ancients flashback with Huln. He could have retreated to Suramar at the end of the Highmountain campaign.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I think that at this point there's not enough value in holding the transmog armor type restrictions to justify the loss of customization potential. It feels extremely at odds with their recent pushes for more player agency in customization and expression.

The more contentious question is do legacy tier sets have their appearances completely untethered from their classes?

I'm of the opinion that the argument about Class Silhouette in PVP being the "be all end all" to this issue has always been a silly one due to the myriad of solutions they can implement to fix that concern. If players don't want a Warrior in Dreamwalker Set with two Staffs slamming them down there could always be a Interface toggle for those who want Class Silhouettes to be kept or PVP has it so you can only have Transmog in Class Silhouette basis.

So yeah, I mean I'm not opposed to anything I think creativity and self expression wins out at this point in the MMORPGs and if people want Transmog to not be shown they should be given the option with a Toggle system in their Interface Settings.

(It hurts no one and most people won't even be aware of that Setting if it existed so those who get angry about their Transmogs not being seen is super silly especially since you would have to opt-out to toggle off transmog anyways.)

[Cheezits]

If they opened tmog restrictions, most people would just put on mageweave. Turns out, we are getting cosmetic mageweave in Midnight so there we go!

May as well open up tmog, but I think weapon restrictions should be lifted first and foremost.