Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Pyrophax]

What's wrong with wanting things to happen? Making us "lose" would be a good payoff for the build up of Xal'atath of last 2 expansions and would also raise the stakes of the conflict. Midnight was presented as Xal'atath's assault on quel'thalas and as the conflict between light and void. From the leaks, it seems like we're resolving that in just 1 patch because they want us to fuck off to snake island

But things DO happen, they are not?
Sunwell is no more, corrupted and twisted, again. Do we really need another story about "Oh, using magic from magical well is VERY BAAAAAD thing, lets ruin Quel'Thalas again just for some "high stakes"?
We had that in War of Ancients, Burning Crusade expansion, Legion expansion already. What wrong with using magic from some source? They are magic creatures that needs magic to sustain.
Every elf, apparently. Night Elves use small moonwells just like high elves use one large Sunwell. Well, Dawnwell for now. With rainbow and ponies.

[Reive]

But things DO happen, they are not?
Sunwell is no more, corrupted and twisted, again. Do we really need another story about "Oh, using magic from magical well is VERY BAAAAAD thing, lets ruin Quel'Thalas again just for some "high stakes"?
We had that in War of Ancients, Burning Crusade expansion, Legion expansion already. What wrong with using magic from some source? They are magic creatures that needs magic to sustain.
Every elf, apparently. Night Elves use small moonwells just like high elves use one large Sunwell. Well, Dawnwell for now. With rainbow and ponies.

high stakes give the plot weight. modern wow does this thing where you get results without seeing the actual development.

the plot of the sunwell should not be resolved in 1 patch/1 hour of questing. if you really want to fix it, then let it be an end of expansion/end of the trilogy thing. let the characters struggle and earn their happy ending. having a bunch of elves instantly fix the sunwell by throwing random shit in it is really lame.

[Pyrophax]

high stakes give the plot weight. modern wow does this thing where you get results without seeing the actual development.

the plot of the sunwell should not be resolved in 1 patch/1 hour of questing. if you really want to fix it, then let it be an end of expansion/end of the trilogy thing. let the characters struggle and earn their happy ending. having a bunch of elves instantly fix the sunwell by throwing random shit in it is really lame.

Fixing Sunwell by throwing random stuff in it is really shit move. What does even that trash items to do with cleansing magical ley-line center?
Anasterian crown. Really? It is somehow very magical item? What? Why it is in Vereesa hands in a first place? Why that heritage armor stay in hands of literal traitor and mass murderer of Blood Elves?
Umbric who throw void crystal into VoidWell to cleanse it. Really? Use Void to cleanse Void, brilliant move blizz.
Moonwell water and Arcan'dor's fruit at least hold some sense.

But main problem aside quickness of this action (it should be delayed for like 1-2 weeks to build drama at least) - randomness of characters and lack of Blood Elf involvement. Liadrin and thats it? We have Vereesa and Umbric plus Shandris from Alliance. We go again with Alliance saves a day for blood elves.
Why not bring there trolls? Saving Sunwell by Loa magic seems more reasonable then Void Crystal from double traitors Umbric or Vereesa.
Why not Lor'themar who throw Crown?
Why not Rommath and some Arcane stuff? Half of Magister Terrase is museum of arcane artifacts. Why not them?

[allegrian]

They actually did the exact same in the Amirdrassil ending where many elves, including the player character if playing NE, threw some shit to the water to bless it.

It's all super uninspired.

[Nymrohd]

They actually did the exact same in the Amirdrassil ending where many elves, including the player character if playing NE, threw some shit to the water to bless it.

It's all super uninspired.

That is the process of blessing a moonwell though and we've had it since much earlier than DF. In Legion we actually see the ritual preparation for establishing a new moonwell.

[Reive]

Fixing Sunwell by throwing random stuff in it is really shit move. What does even that trash items to do with cleansing magical ley-line center?
Anasterian crown. Really? It is somehow very magical item? What? Why it is in Vereesa hands in a first place? Why that heritage armor stay in hands of literal traitor and mass murderer of Blood Elves?
Umbric who throw void crystal into VoidWell to cleanse it. Really? Use Void to cleanse Void, brilliant move blizz.
Moonwell water and Arcan'dor's fruit at least hold some sense.

But main problem aside quickness of this action (it should be delayed for like 1-2 weeks to build drama at least) - randomness of characters and lack of Blood Elf involvement. Liadrin and thats it? We have Vereesa and Umbric plus Shandris from Alliance. We go again with Alliance saves a day for blood elves.
Why not bring there trolls? Saving Sunwell by Loa magic seems more reasonable then Void Crystal from double traitors Umbric or Vereesa.
Why not Lor'themar who throw Crown?
Why not Rommath and some Arcane stuff? Half of Magister Terrase is museum of arcane artifacts. Why not them?

vereesa and shandris shouldn't even be there lol

maybe it won't be as bad as it looks but yeah, that feels really lame

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when they talked about elven unity i expected something we had to deal with for the whole saga. also, i expected nagas to be involved

[elbleuet]

Fixing Sunwell by throwing random stuff in it is really shit move. What does even that trash items to do with cleansing magical ley-line center?
Anasterian crown. Really? It is somehow very magical item? What? Why it is in Vereesa hands in a first place? Why that heritage armor stay in hands of literal traitor and mass murderer of Blood Elves?
Umbric who throw void crystal into VoidWell to cleanse it. Really? Use Void to cleanse Void, brilliant move blizz.
Moonwell water and Arcan'dor's fruit at least hold some sense.

But main problem aside quickness of this action (it should be delayed for like 1-2 weeks to build drama at least) - randomness of characters and lack of Blood Elf involvement. Liadrin and thats it? We have Vereesa and Umbric plus Shandris from Alliance. We go again with Alliance saves a day for blood elves.
Why not bring there trolls? Saving Sunwell by Loa magic seems more reasonable then Void Crystal from double traitors Umbric or Vereesa.
Why not Lor'themar who throw Crown?
Why not Rommath and some Arcane stuff? Half of Magister Terrase is museum of arcane artifacts. Why not them?

I mean... each elven group has to be represented so what's wrong with that ?

Umbric for the void elves, Vereesa for the High elves and Shandris for the Night elves. It's all about elven unity now.

And High and Void elves were spotted defending the Sunwell alongside the blood elves and Nightborne so why would they not be represented to cure the Voidwell ?

Apparently Alleria also throws something into the Voidwell. But I agree that Lor'Themar should throw something aswell. He's the leader of Quel'Thalas after all.

[Khaza-R]

Why not just destroy the well? Why does it need to be repaired by the power of friendship and communism? I swear, modern blizzard is allergic to giving things consequences.

To be fair, TBC was the expansion that started the power of friendship nonsense and the perpetual Horde/Alliance dynamic of aggressor/victim that they've just repeated ad nauseum.

Blood Elves were more interesting without the Sunwell restored. They could of had way better story progression having a personal quest of looking for sustainable sources of magic or hunting down evil forces and siphoning it from them. Instead we got a really boring and nonsensical civil war story.

[Jaggler]

To be fair, TBC was the expansion that started the power of friendship nonsense and the perpetual Horde/Alliance dynamic of aggressor/victim that they've just repeated ad nauseum.

Blood Elves were more interesting without the Sunwell restored. They could of had way better story progression having a personal quest of looking for sustainable sources of magic or hunting down evil forces and siphoning it from them. Instead we got a really boring and nonsensical civil war story.

We need more Blood Elves like Astalor. Like, not actievly evil but willing to take any source of power they can get to reach their goals. I really love his portrayal in Midnight.

[Santandame]

Such a well written and articulated post on the subject and the point just flew over people's heads.

I do remember being underwhelmed when I finally got to Vakthros because it looked so cool from afar.

It’s an excellent post that is extremely well explained. Sadly the opposition tends to either downplay or ignore the majority of it whilst sticking their fingers in their ears and loudly going “lalalalala”. Remember you must prefer everything that’s new, and if you prefer what came before here’s why you’re wrong.

[The-Shan]

Why not just destroy the well? Why does it need to be repaired by the power of friendship and communism? I swear, modern blizzard is allergic to giving things consequences.

What? Communism? What are you talking about?

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I mean where does the story go from here... Sunwell > Darkwell (lol) > Dawnwell (lmao). Trolls again? Why? Everything just seems so disconnected or very artificially pieced together.

It didn't feel artificially pieced together after playing through it on my end. I'm not sure if you'd played it or if you've just read about it, but I've found sometimes just reading about blizz's writing takes it down from mid to terrible unless you experience it ingame.

[Cheezits]

I think it's worth noting that the Darkwell cleansing is NOT a pre-rendered cinematic- so that must be about what happens to Xal and/or the Windrunners.

It's sounding like Xal does win if the well is still corrupted.

[Nyel]

Ul'atek might be where a faceless one is located, so maybe something worthwhile for Xal to target, but it's such a minor threat that one has to wonder why we led with Silvermoon and an existential threat of the Sunwell being taken if the next step is...fucking that.

Edit: Sorry, a C'Thraxxi. Different song, same tune.

Yeah, that's my issue with it. The stakes just seem odd. We go from Dimensius to the Sunwell plot and then to... that. And what happens in the .2 patch? They need to up the stakes again otherwise this expansion is really shaping up to be the epitome of Mid(nights).

[Scyth]

It feels weird that the Sunwell plot is resolved so fast but I'm also not a fan of how little Xal has been involved so far. I get she is more of a villain who stays in the shadows and uses others for her gains but we need to see her do more (and also learn about her end goal obviously).

Hopefully the Troll patch, assuming that's what we get, isn't just a repeat of Undermine though.

[Ersula]

Why not just destroy the well? Why does it need to be repaired by the power of friendship and communism? I swear, modern blizzard is allergic to giving things consequences.

I know they haven't focused on it in a while but the Blood elves need it to live. Even though they never explained what font of magic the non-void high elves have been relying on. I guess they're like Gale from BG3 & have been eating enchanted pants.

[Jaggler]

I know they haven't focused on it in a while but the Blood elves need it to live. Even though they never explained what font of magic the non-void high elves have been relying on. I guess they're like Gale from BG3 & have been eating enchanted pants.

The High Elves have been getting their fill from magical artifact or for example moonwells

[Joshuaj]

I think it's worth noting that the Darkwell cleansing is NOT a pre-rendered cinematic- so that must be about what happens to Xal and/or the Windrunners.

It's sounding like Xal does win if the well is still corrupted.

I mean, it is possible it could be both, with the process itself being a regular IGC, and the actual cleansing showcase being a pre-rendered one.

Even if that wasn't the case, nothing implies the well will still be corrupted.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I mean we just don't have the spoilers of whether she did anything or if this was just to torment Alleria. So until we get those spoilers its' obviously not going to be clear any info related to Xal'atath.

[Enrif]

I mean we just don't have the spoilers of whether she did anything or if this was just to torment Alleria. So until we get those spoilers its' obviously not going to be clear any info related to Xal'atath.

i do wonder, none of the spoilers and infos from alpha/beta so far for midnight did show Xal'atath in any meaningful way, right? Sure, she led the assault on the sunwell, but since then, did she show up anywhere?

[Vakir]

i do wonder, none of the spoilers and infos from alpha/beta so far for midnight did show Xal'atath in any meaningful way, right? Sure, she led the assault on the sunwell, but since then, did she show up anywhere?

She does some empty and bland talking head quest text for bonus objectives in the intro.

We see a hologram of some chatting of her with Sadhaar in the Voidstorm.

That's about all I recall.