Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Telogrus]

Can we all agree that the pre-Chronicle Old Gods were way more interesting than the modern Void ended up being?

[Xilurm]

Can we all agree that the pre-Chronicle Old Gods were way more interesting than the modern Void ended up being?

Dimensius was one of the most "HURR DURR ME SMASH" 1 dimensional villains we ever got.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Can we all agree that the pre-Chronicle Old Gods were way more interesting than the modern Void ended up being?

Well, there's no real Void left beyond Xal'atath so I think if you're a fan of the Void or the Old Gods this is like a no brainer agreement. Heh.

[Joshuaj]

Dimensius was one of the most "HURR DURR ME SMASH" 1 dimensional villains we ever got.

That's why I liked him though...

[Count Zero]

"""an expansion reveal""" in this case was panel scheduling and video release organization that was largely handled entirely by the marketing department, or perhaps even pulled entirely out of Blizzard hands and handled by higher level Microsoft marketing departments.
The expansion reveal is a result of departments being cut by executives into smaller and smaller staff or responsibilities exported entirely from the company to the parent.

I was replying to someone who said the voice work seemed to lack direction, and it was the lack of direction in general rather than the voicework I was commenting on.

My examples were 1) the expansion reveal, your description of which portrays it as a failure of leadership in the same way I think of it as, and 2) the recent messaging about encounter and addon changes - which Ion himself referred to as incoherent, and that they'll be releasing a centralized information source. Ion, the game director.

These are not related in that there is one team responsible, but in that these are things that should have had more oversight / cohesion / direction. Either people weren't doing their jobs, or there weren't people assigned to do them (possibly because the positions that would have don't exist anymore, perhaps the person who would have assigned people to those positions was themself in a position that doesn't exist anymore.).

[Joshuaj]

Can we all agree that the pre-Chronicle Old Gods were way more interesting than the modern Void ended up being?

They were only interesting cause we knew fuck all about them lol

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And I never said otherwise. WoW's always been average to bad when it comes to writing, but it made up for that with cool characters and cinematics. WoW lost even that. And the one thing I think they always did right for the most part, voice acting, seems to be following suit. It's all very off, and any older fan can tell. I realized that the game is cooked for good and it lost even good VA when they added those mole people, niffen, which unfortunately I had to listen to for an entire patch

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It's more of a Diablo cinematic than a WoW one. Too much dialogue, the pacing is off, Liadrin looks like a human and not a blood elf, and the cinematic just kind of fizzles away with some half assed 'combat'. Compare it to WoD or BfA

"too much dialogue"

Wrathgate, Broken Shore, some of the Legion cinematics, etc:

And sure, there were some cool characters in old WoW, but a lot of that coolness was carried by WC3 tbh. Varian and Anduin were peak though, so I'll give ya that.

[Telogrus]

Well, there's no real Void left beyond Xal'atath so I think if you're a fan of the Void or the Old Gods this is like a no brainer agreement. Heh.

Blizz throwing the Old Gods in the trash and replacing them with Temu Galactus was certainly a decision.

[Joshuaj]

Also, the Liadrin issue is just an overall issue with main cinematic elves in WoW. Sylvanas went through the exact same issue.

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Blizz throwing the Old Gods in the trash and replacing them with Temu Galactus was certainly a decision.

I thought it was fine. I liked seeing Blizzard touch on ALL the aspects of the Lovecraftian Void. Both the tentacle Lovecraftian, as well as the cosmic Lovecraftian.

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Well, there's no real Void left beyond Xal'atath so I think if you're a fan of the Void or the Old Gods this is like a no brainer agreement. Heh.

Queen Azshara:

[Telogrus]

That's why I liked him though...

Dimensius would be fine if he wasn’t the ONLY Void Lord left. The fact that those 2 random adds we fight in P2 are actual Void Lords is so comically stupid. It’s obvious that Blizz regrets creating the Void Lords and just wanted to unceremoniously get rid of them, so they just made the other Void Lords into essentially weaker clones of Dimensius who all got consumed by him offscreen

[Count Zero]

Dimensius was one of the most "HURR DURR ME SMASH" 1 dimensional villains we ever got.

That's why I liked him though...

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with 1-dimensional villains as long as the stakes are portrayed well. Like if we see how communities/individuals are affected.

The Dimensius fight itself has a sense of scale/scope/grandeur that feels massive.

[COBRAstriker]

Can we all agree that the pre-Chronicle Old Gods were way more interesting than the modern Void ended up being?

Absolutely. The Old Gods were also more terrifying and their grotesque appearance added to that. Not to mention their own language and the whispers players would get when being near one. What even is the void? They keep propping it up as some world ending threat but it never feels like it. How can anyone take it serious when you even get to befriend one void creature in Voidstorm

[Joshuaj]

Dimensius would be fine if he wasn’t the ONLY Void Lord left. The fact that those 2 random adds we fight in P2 are actual Void Lords is so comically stupid. It’s obvious that Blizz regrets creating the Void Lords and just wanted to unceremoniously get rid of them, so they just made the other Void Lords into essentially weaker clones of Dimensius who all got consumed by him offscreen

I think it's more like they want to try and dial it back on the cosmic craziness for a bit. Idk if TLT is gonna retcon the First Ones into being the Titans (I hope not) or simply have it to where the First Ones are far more connected to Azeroth than we once believed, but either way, they're gonna do some heavy shit with Azeroth and her true nature, and honestly, I think Blizzard knows damn well players are getting tired of the constant rising power levels and constant rising cosmic threats. Don't be surprised if the next few expansions stay away from the Titans, the Shadowlands, etc for a bit.

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If there IS something I want to see regarding the Progenitors in TLT (And, again, if they're retconned, I think that'd be stupid, and it'd simply make Blizzard look weak for catering to that weird side of the fanbase that doesn't want to see anything new cosmic-wise in the franchise), I hope it's more-so that the Progenitors planned something for Azeroth, but not all of them agreed with where Azeroth should be placed.

Meaning, I'd want "Life" to be the one to express the cradle idea, and I'd want "Order" to be the one to express the Worldcore idea. This idea would then be explained to the Titans, who'd then rip Azeroth's soul from her cradle and place it into the Worldcore.

The cradle keeps Azeroth free and her dreams outgoing, while the Worldcore binds Azeroth and controls her dreams.

[Telogrus]

Absolutely. The Old Gods were also more terrifying and their grotesque appearance added to that. Not to mention their own language and the whispers players would get when being near one. What even is the void? They keep propping it up as some world ending threat but it never feels like it. How can anyone take it serious when you even get to befriend one void creature in Voidstorm

Is it just me or did N’Zoth seem stronger than Dimensius? We needed to use the power of Azeroth herself to beat him.

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I think it's more like they want to try and dial it back on the cosmic craziness for a bit. Idk if TLT is gonna retcon the First Ones into being the Titans (I hope not) or simply have it to where the First Ones are far more connected to Azeroth than we once believed, but either way, they're gonna do some heavy shit with Azeroth and her true nature, and honestly, I think Blizzard knows damn well players are getting tired of the constant rising power levels and constant rising cosmic threats. Don't be surprised if the next few expansions stay away from the Titans, the Shadowlands, etc for a bit.

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If there IS something I want to see regarding the Progenitors in TLT (And, again, if they're retconned, I think that'd be stupid, and it'd simply make Blizzard look weak for catering to that weird side of the fanbase that doesn't want to see anything new cosmic-wise in the franchise), I hope it's more-so that the Progenitors planned something for Azeroth, but not all of them agreed with where Azeroth should be placed.

Meaning, I'd want "Life" to be the one to express the cradle idea, and I'd want "Order" to be the one to express the Worldcore idea. This idea would then be explained to the Titans, who'd then rip Azeroth's soul from her cradle and place it into the Worldcore.

The cradle keeps Azeroth free and her dreams outgoing, while the Worldcore binds Azeroth and controls her dreams.

Where exactly even is Harandar in the planet anyways? You’d assume the World Soul would be in the core of the planet. So is Harandar in the center of the planet, and the Worldcore somewhere else, or vice versa?

[Joshuaj]

Is it just me or did N’Zoth seem stronger than Dimensius? We needed to use the power of Azeroth herself to beat him.

Well, it's more like we used the Machine of Origination to stop him, but yeah, N'Zoth was impressive.

Dimensius was also impressive though, and we needed to use K'aresh's worldsoul fragments to weaken him.

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Is it just me or did N’Zoth seem stronger than Dimensius? We needed to use the power of Azeroth herself to beat him.

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Where exactly even is Harandar in the planet anyways? You’d assume the World Soul would be in the core of the planet. So is Harandar in the center of the planet, and the Worldcore somewhere else, or vice versa?

It's where all the world-trees link up, so probably around the core of the world, yeah.

[Wazooty]

I'm half expecting to find out that the old gods aren't actually pure void creatures, but some mix between void and azeroths energy, accidently created by the titans during their experiments on her/their attempts to purify her.

Between the curse of flesh being like a bastardized version of her free will aura, and ghuun being a literal titan old god experiment.

I dunno though. I agree wholeheartedly that there is way too much going on with the old gods for them to seem like pure void creatures. They represent this bastardization of life where the void seems more elemental. Way cooler and more ominous that the void has ever been.

[GeometryWizard]

Is it just me or did N’Zoth seem stronger than Dimensius? We needed to use the power of Azeroth herself to beat him.

Unless the finale really steps it up in a way that probably won't happen the way they've been handling the scopes and stake of this whole story in such a confused fashion. Look at how they handled this

Dimensius is built up as the ultimate endgame void villain who decimated K'aresh and it's a warning of what will happen to Azeroth if we fail to stop Xal'atath but actually K'aresh was blown up by the ethereals and we also defeat Dimensius ourselves so Xal'atath doesn't seem like such a big deal

And apparently she isn't much of a big deal because the Alliance and Horde both came out in force to stop her in Khaz Algar but right now it looks like they're going to do nothing in Midnight which is supposed to be her actual massive invasion, the blood elves are just going to reach out to the night elves and nightborne individually for help because someone at Blizzard kept saying "elven reunification" in a board room over and over. So how much of a threat is Xal'atath and the Void if the biggest militaries on the planet can just ignore her. The story itself doesn't seem to think she's a big deal since it spends so much time harping on about how actually bad the Light is

I've said it before but it feels like they got completely bored of this void storyline a while ago and are trying to rush past it now that it's supposed to be front and center. They'll probably keep Xal'atath around for a long time because she's a sexy elf villain that isn't steeped in controversy so the marketing department will want her front and center as long as possible

[Joshuaj]

I'm half expecting to find out that the old gods aren't actually pure void creatures, but some mix between void and azeroths energy, accidently created by the titans during their experiments on her/their attempts to purify her.

Between the curse of flesh being like a bastardized version of her free will aura, and ghuun being a literal titan old god experiment.

I dunno though. I agree wholeheartedly that there is way too much going on with the old gods for them to seem like pure void creatures. They represent this bastardization of life where the void seems more elemental. Way cooler and more ominous that the void has ever been.

I don't think they were accidentally made by the Titans. G'huun was literally made as a result of the Titans trying to experiment on the Old Gods.

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Them being more than Void though? Most likely. It's also entirely possible the Titans were simply bullshitting about the Old Gods origin. That, or the Old Gods were a creation of Void and Life working together. That, OR they were once pure Void, and they became physical after being juiced up by Azeroth? Idk.

Them being linked with Life though makes sense to me, as they can root themselves, they're fleshy, etc.

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Yogg-Saron can also mess with the Emerald Dream, and link itself with the Shadowlands. That HAS to involve some type of Life and/or Death connection in some way. Wouldn't be shocked if Elune was somewhat to blame for this, even if she likely didn't intend for all of this to happen.

[Wazooty]

Unless the finale really steps it up in a way that probably won't happen the way they've been handling the scopes and stake of this whole story in such a confused fashion. Look at how they handled this

I'm hoping against hope that the major patches ramp the scale of this supposed ragnarok up massively. Damn near every ally and villian in the entirety of wows history has a stake in this fight. Dragons, titan keepers, Velen, Anduin, all the titan constructs we've met over the years, old gods, the burning legion. Damn near everyone and everything has led to this fight yet it feels so small and isolated.

[Joshuaj]

Afterall, she is also linked with the Naaru. "Upstart goddess" indeed.

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I'm hoping against hope that the major patches ramp the scale of this supposed ragnarok up massively. Damn near every ally and villian in the entirety of wows history has a stake in this fight. Dragons, titan keepers, all the titan constructs we've met over the years, old gods, the burning legion. Damn near everyone and everything has led to this fight yet it feels so small and isolated.

I wanna beat up Sargeras in TLT

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If I can fight Sargeras in TLT (P1 Avatar, P2 Full Powered Sargeras, P3 weakened Sargeras, similar to the Dimensius fight but with the Dark Titan instead), then that's more than enough reason for me to find TLT bigger than Midnight ngl.

[Telogrus]

I'm half expecting to find out that the old gods aren't actually pure void creatures, but some mix between void and azeroths energy, accidently created by the titans during their experiments on her/their attempts to purify her.

Between the curse of flesh being like a bastardized version of her free will aura, and ghuun being a literal titan old god experiment.

I dunno though. I agree wholeheartedly that there is way too much going on with the old gods for them to seem like pure void creatures. They represent this bastardization of life where the void seems more elemental. Way cooler and more ominous that the void has ever been.

Blizz will retcon the Old Gods into being the Void equivalent of Beledar and all the other Light crystals that are apparently out there

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I wonder how many times Blizzard has changed their mind behind the scenes on what Elune is?