Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Vakir]

People love to set themselves up for disappointment and then be angry.

People also love being angry based on incomplete information and then filling in the gaps with whatever sounds most ridiculous (see rainbow well for example).

In short, people just love being angry on the internet for some reason.

Pretty much. Just go here literally any time there's a reveal coming.

It hasn't just been in response to the Worldsoul teases - every single expansion announcement imminent has a laundry list of expected features that are maybe 1/10th of what people are actually getting.

"2 new races, 10 class skins that will each literally take the same amount of work as adding a new class in terms of assets, 4 new specs, new race customization including subraces, create your own dungeons and raids, and housing - trust me, my uncle works at Nintendo."

And it's not just modern Blizzard complacency compared to past expectations - it's literally everything since after Cataclysm, probably because that reveal set the bar insanely high before the realization later that they cut off way more than they could chew.

I think at present Midnight is absolutely a let-down but far more to the execution and, seemingly, the pacing than the features list. Adding a bunch of sizzle won't fix that this is threatened to be a really poor steak. The content base and gameplay loop of DF and TWW are winners and don't need to be changed. They need encounter design to not suck if they're really going to try to upend mod culture and a setting focus and writing that isn't shit.

[Nymrohd]

Think that’s something we forget. The community on this forum after hearing Midnight would be a return to Quel’thalas and an expansion focused on the Void, just randomly and almost unanimously decided that this expansion was going to be Legion 2.0.

There’s literally one guy in this thread who’s said numerous times that he believes Midnight will have the most and best patch content out of any expansion. Based off of what?

I think it's also a response to TWW not really being exciting in its content or story. People who defend Blizzard for anything thought that was a good line of defense. They have already been shifting to "TLT will be the best expac ever". I don't know, I have so many people on ignore at this point.

[Vakir]

They have already been shifting to "TLT will be the best expac ever."

Philosophy or tone of the setting aside, I have to wonder, given Legion feels like the only near-universally enjoyed expansion since the last 5(!) - are people willing to sit through 12-18 month droughts or selfie-style minor patches if it means getting something that beefy on launch?

I specify on launch because the Broken Shore was kinda shit, and even Argus being pretty good clearly didn't have all the time in the oven they wanted for Antoran Wastes.

I frankly wouldn't give a damn, I've been in here before with people acting like junkies for new info specifically arguing "quit and play something else," but some people act like this is literally their only hobby.

It's too late to "delay 3 months and let it cook" suggested by Reive (lol) with how dev pipeline works for Midnight, but I really think they need to take their damn time with the payoff in TLT.

[Jaggler]

Philosophy or tone of the setting aside, I have to wonder, given Legion feels like the only near-universally enjoyed expansion since the last 5(!) - are people willing to sit through 12-18 month droughts or selfie-style minor patches if it means getting something that beefy on launch?

I specify on launch because the Broken Shore was kinda shit, and even Argus being pretty good clearly didn't have all the time in the oven they wanted for Antoran Wastes.

Yeah, people love Legion because it had a lot of content, but they forgot WHY Legion had so much content. WoD was already pretty light on endgame content and then it was abandoned halfway through.

[Nymrohd]

Yeah, people love Legion because it had a lot of content, but they forgot WHY Legion had so much content. WoD was already pretty light on endgame content and then it was abandoned halfway through.

Did Tanaan have less content than K'aresh? I'd argue it had at least comparable if not more; a much bigger raid, the shipyard (which yes, was trash but still was a complex system), world content that actually was worthwhile to casual players (had catch up systems, far more collectibles). K'aresh has one of the worst questlines in WoW with the Ecological whatever thing and does have a dungeon (WoD had the Mythic dungeon mode added instead).

[allegrian]

Compared to DF, TWW was also pretty abandoned since we got rehashed content for each minor patch and the last major patch didn't have much meat in it.

[Jaggler]

Did Tanaan have less content than K'aresh?

Tanaan had very little, especially considering a lot of the landmass was already present at launch (just not accessible). Tanaan had a few dailies, and those small assaults at various locations. I definitely would say that K'aresh had more content than Tanaan, even though i am personally not a fan of K'aresh at all.

Compared to DF, TWW was also pretty abandoned since we got rehashed content for each minor patch and the last major patch didn't have much meat in it.

Nah, i wouldn't saw TWW was abandoned. It certainly was rushed though, due to removing Harandar and cramming in K'aresh.

I perosnally think it would have been better to just let TWW play out like it was planned and then start their Saga. Would have been much more sustainable I think.

[Nymrohd]

Philosophy or tone of the setting aside, I have to wonder, given Legion feels like the only near-universally enjoyed expansion since the last 5(!) - are people willing to sit through 12-18 month droughts or selfie-style minor patches if it means getting something that beefy on launch?

I specify on launch because the Broken Shore was kinda shit, and even Argus being pretty good clearly didn't have all the time in the oven they wanted for Antoran Wastes.

I frankly wouldn't give a damn, I've been in here before with people acting like junkies for new info specifically arguing "quit and play something else," but some people act like this is literally their only hobby.

It's too late to "delay 3 months and let it cook" suggested by Reive (lol) with how dev pipeline works for Midnight, but I really think they need to take their damn time with the payoff in TLT.

THey did delay one of the expansions fairly recently. Honestly if we are approaching pre-patch and crucial addon replacements (nameplates, raid frames) are still in a poor state, they SHOULD delay. It'd be better than having people log in one day and not recognize what game they are playing.

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Tanaan had very little, especially considering a lot of the landmass was already present at launch (just not accessible). Tanaan had a few dailies, and those small assaults at various locations. I definitely would say that K'aresh had more content than Tanaan, even though i am personally not a fan of K'aresh at all.

About a third of K'aresh is Tazavesh that was just added from WoD with minimal effort made (very few ethereal NPCs, no banks or vaults). Dailies vs World Quests seems similar as do the bigger event rares vs the Devourer attacks. And it did have more garrison content as well with more companions and the ships. But the more important part is, you actually had a reason to be out in Tanaan (a lot of toys, mounts, pets, some fishing and pet content) while you barely have reason to be out in K'aresh (very few collectibles in general, most of them being ecological nothing pets you are better off buying once you get the mount). The game has also far more robust core gameplay so the zone itself is less important.

[Jaggler]

About a third of K'aresh is Tazavesh that was just added from WoD with minimal effort made (very few ethereal NPCs, no banks or vaults). Dailies vs World Quests seems similar as do the bigger event rares vs the Devourer attacks. And it did have more garrison content as well with more companions and the ships. But the more important part is, you actually had a reason to be out in Tanaan (a lot of toys, mounts, pets, some fishing and pet content) while you barely have reason to be out in K'aresh (very few collectibles in general, most of them being ecological nothing pets you are better off buying once you get the mount). The game has also far more robust core gameplay so the zone itself is less important.

I mean, you could argue that Tanaan was better than K'aresh, if you want, that's fine by me. Sifference of opinion, and all that. But i certainly was way more miserable during Tanaan than during K'aresh. I personally didn't really care about the garrison anymore by the time we got to Tanaan and the ships, oil etc. was just more of the same, just with a different coat of paint. Like i am really not a fan of K'aresh, but i would take K'aresh over Tanaan any time of day (Though I'd rather we would actually get good content haha)

[Darkarath]

I agree with the notion that Midnight being the new Legion is something that the playerbase set up themselves.

I'm hyped for Midnight since the WSS reveal mostly for the return to the old world and the revamped zones. The only let down was the reveal of the expansion itself at Gamescom.

I'm still very hyped for the expansion and very curious about where we'll go after 12.0 and what Xal'athat is doing, because clearly her invasion has nothing to do with the Legion invasion. It's a totally different approach. My main concern is that patch zones (besides Ula'tek) end up being more instanced zones.

I enjoyed very much TWW and Midnight is giving us more of that plus Housing, so I'll be very happy unless the story is a total disaster.

I also have the same feeling that I had with DF. Before that expansion launched I said that we would probably get a lot of patch content for some of the answers that Blizzard gave in interviews.

I have that same feeling now and remember, presumably, Midnight will be the first expansion in... Maybe in WoW's history, without important development changes.

Cannot wait to see 2026's roadmap.

Like i am really not a fan of K'aresh, but i would take K'aresh over Tanaan any time of day.

Completely agree.

[Nymrohd]

Nah, i wouldn't saw TWW was abandoned. It certainly was rushed though, due to removing Harandar and cramming in K'aresh.

I perosnally think it would have been better to just let TWW play out like it was planned and then start their Saga. Would have been much more sustainable I think.

Honestly, they could just tell the same story they are telling now without reshuffling things. Move K'aresh to Midnight, have Dimensius be behind the Voidstorms, Xal would be "helping" us throughout launch content and then would backstab us after Manaforge Omega leading into March to Quel'danas. We'd then stop her with L'ura but she would have freshly absorbed Dimensius so the threat would feel more current.

Meanwhile moving Harandar to TWW would allow Harandar to have the Black Blood storyline conclusion with a proper raid on the Rift of Aln. And an early introduction to the Lightbloom would still be possible, maybe in a non-hostile version.

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I mean, you could argue that Tanaan was better than K'aresh, if you want, that's fine by me. Sifference of opinion, and all that. But i certainly was way more miserable during Tanaan than during K'aresh. I personally didn't really care about the garrison anymore by the time we got to Tanaan and the ships, oil etc. was just more of the same, just with a different coat of paint. Like i am really not a fan of K'aresh, but i would take K'aresh over Tanaan any time of day.

I am not arguing either is good. I am saying both are similar in amount of effort.

[Jaggler]

am not arguing either is good. I am saying both are similar in amount of effort.

I would still say K'aresh comes up ahead of Tanaan by a fair margin (but that's like saying "this piece of turd is a better piece of turd than the other one)

[Nymrohd]

I would still say K'aresh comes up ahead of Tanaan by a fair margin (but that's like saying "this piece of turd is a better piece of turd than the other one)

I just think the "WoD was abandoned so we could have Legion" narrative does not work and intentionally sets the bar low for Blizzard. The bigger argument? BfA was as ambitious as Legion was and no one is going me to convince me that Legion with Argus as a final patch was "abandoned" so BfA could launch completely separate faction experiences and two very ambitious (if failed) systems in Wafronts and Island Expeditions that both required a lot of new tech. Plus the best marketing campaign of any Warcraft expac by a wide margin (7.0.3 added 3k quests to the game with all the class hall content. 8.0.1 added 3,5k! Comparatively, TWW and Midnight are at 1,5k, down from DF's 1,8 and SL's 2,1k)

I think the reason Blizzard has given us widely different levels of content has more to do with mismanagement. WoD was a mess because the Garrison was a black hole of development time and by the time they had abandoned half the promised features they did not have enough time to make a proper expansion so they just tied everything to the one feature they had invested on. Plus they completely second guessed themselves and had to redo multiple zones to a significant extent and also over invested in TrAshran.
With Legion I just think they did not waste time scrapping things and redoing them (it's evident in how there are some slightly shifts in tone between the starting experience and Azsuna and the rest of the expac; they did not go and rewrite those to match, they just let them be because they were unimportant). They just made the right calls from early on and had less waste.

With the Saga we see them shuffling things around and that just means waste. K'aresh was probably pulled from Midnight to TWW later in development and they just did not have time to flesh it out.

[Santandame]

I would still say K'aresh comes up ahead of Tanaan by a fair margin (but that's like saying "this piece of turd is a better piece of turd than the other one)

Personally, I disagree. I did not enjoy Tanaan at all. I still feel like I got more play time out of Tanaan than I have with K’aresh. For that, I’d put Tanaan over K’aresh.

In my opinion, K’aresh is the worst patch zone ever added to the game. Even Korthia which was equally as dreadful, gave me slightly more play time.

K’aresh is also brought down by what it could have been. With some desire and creativity, it could have been an expansion landmass. It was one of the most highly requested zones to visit in the game, going as far back as its first expansion. Up there with the likes of Argus, Nazjatar and the Emerald Dream in terms of wants. The ball was dropped in a rather considerable way.

Taking into account patch zones from say MoP onwards, it doesn’t come close to any of the top end zones: Isle of Thunder, Timeless Isle, Argus, Mechagon, Nazjatar, Undermine. It’s not comparable with some of the more mid zones: Zereth Mortis, Zaralek Caverns, Emerald Dream. And I’d say it’s a less appealing shit, similar in vein to a tiny rock hard, dry nugget when compared to the shit patch zones: Broken Shore, Tanaan, Korthia; which are all varying levels of shit rounding from a decent log to an explosion, yet are all slightly more satisfying than what K’aresh was.

At least with Korthia and Tanaan there wasn’t years and years of hype and speculation to piss over. Whilst with Broken Shore for the most part we knew what to expect.

Dreadful quest chain. A completely empty zone. Very little content.

[Jaggler]

I just think the "WoD was abandoned so we could have Legion" narrative does not work and intentionally sets the bar low for Blizzard. The bigger argument? BfA was as ambitious as Legion was and no one is going me to convince me that Legion with Argus as a final patch was "abandoned" so BfA could launch completely separate faction experiences and two very ambitious (if failed) systems in Wafronts and Island Expeditions that both required a lot of new tech. Plus the best marketing campaign of any Warcraft expac by a wide margin.

I think it's hard to argue that WoD wasn't abandoned if you consider the amount of content after launch. 6.2 released 10 months after launch and introduced a landmass that was already in the game for the most part and barely any further content apart from the raid.

BfA was very ambitous indeedi totally agree, but there were already some warning signs like the Azerite armor system being enabled very late into testing, being half baked which then led to blizz introducing essences to kinda salvage it. 8.1 released not that long after launch, but it also mostly reused existing assets etc And the tempo and amount of conent obviously wasn't sustainable considering it led into the car crash that Shadowlands.

[Nymrohd]

BfA was very ambitous indeedi totally agree, but there were already some warning signs like the Azerite armor system being enabled very late into testing, being half baked which then led to blizz introducing essences to kinda salvage it. 8.1 released not that long after launch, but it also mostly reused existing assets etc And the tempo and amount of conent obviously wasn't sustainable considering it led into the car crash that Shadowlands.

Again, with Azerite armor it is mismanagement that was the issue, not lack of resources. They poorly judged how the system would work and how it would be received, they undershot the effects. The problem is not sacrificing content elsewhere to get more later, it is bad judgment on the designers on how a system would work, bad judgment on something that was immediately obvious to the player base when it made it into alpha so they should have known better...

With Shadowlands they spent half the alpha testing a version of Torghast everyone who tried it LOVED. Even the ragebait streamers mostly had good things to say about Torghast. Then they scrapped the challenge level and the planned rewards system for it (because at Blizzcon it was supposed to be like delves; a valid but parallel advancement path) and made it cosmetics (but completely random) and a mandatory grind for legendaries (but not for every other slot). Again the issue was bad decisions.

[Jaggler]

Again, with Azerite armor it is mismanagement that was the issue, not lack of resources. They poorly judged how the system would work and how it would be received, they undershot the effects. The problem is not sacrificing content elsewhere to get more later, it is bad judgment on the designers on how a system would work, bad judgment on something that was immediately obvious to the player base when it made it into alpha so they should have known better...

But if they made it available to test they would have had more time to iterate on it, but they basically released it at the last possible moment, because they ran out of time.The launch zones and Quests were nice that's true (but they already were kind of ahead, considering how much content in Legion was already done, for patch content they basically just had to do argus and then they could move on to BfA). 8.1. was mostly reused assets 8.2 had mechagon an Nazjatar (which released about a year after BfA-Launch) and 8.3 was (outside of the raid) again, just reused zones.

With Shadowlands they spent half the alpha testing a version of Torghast everyone who tried it LOVED. Even the ragebait streamers mostly had good things to say about Torghast. Then they scrapped the planned rewards system for it (because at Blizzcon it was supposed to be like delves; a valid but parallel advancement path) and made it cosmetics and a mandatory grind for legendaries (but not for every other slot). Again the issue was bad decisions.

With Shadowlands they spent half the alpha testing a version of Torghast everyone who tried it LOVED. Even the ragebait streamers mostly had good things to say about Torghast. Then they scrapped the planned rewards system for it (because at Blizzcon it was supposed to be like delves; a valid but parallel advancement path) and made it cosmetics and a mandatory grind for legendaries (but not for every other slot). Again the issue was bad decisions.

Torghast certainly was one of the problems of Shadowlands, but not the only one. Blizz clearly ran out of steam. They didn't reuse assets, so it took over half a year to create a new tiny zone and 9.2 needed another 8 months to launch. A lot of the criticisms of Shadowlands of course relates to stubborness and bad decisions, but the content cadence they set up just was not sustainable anymore.

[Nymrohd]

Torghast certainly was one of the problems of Shadowlands, but not the only one. Blizz clearly ran out of steam. They didn't reuse assets, so it took over half a year to create a new tiny zone and 9.2 needed another 8 months to launch. A lot of the criticisms of Shadowlands of course relates to stubborness and bad decisions, but the content cadence they set up just was not sustainable anymore.

See, I think it is more likely that toxicity at the office just destroyed their productivity. Again my main argument is, it is less about how many resources were allocated and often more about how productive those resources ended up being, either because management made very poor calls about crucial features or in the case of SL, because they probably ended up not meeting goals because they were consumed with office drama.

There are budget issues as well but I see them more in big cost items; less cinematics in any form, less marketing material.

[allegrian]

I agree with the notion that Midnight being the new Legion is something that the playerbase set up themselves.

I'm hyped for Midnight since the WSS reveal mostly for the return to the old world and the revamped zones. The only let down was the reveal of the expansion itself at Gamescom.

I'm still very hyped for the expansion and very curious about where we'll go after 12.0 and what Xal'athat is doing, because clearly her invasion has nothing to do with the Legion invasion. It's a totally different approach. My main concern is that patch zones (besides Ula'tek) end up being more instanced zones.

I enjoyed very much TWW and Midnight is giving us more of that plus Housing, so I'll be very happy unless the story is a total disaster.

I also have the same feeling that I had with DF. Before that expansion launched I said that we would probably get a lot of patch content for some of the answers that Blizzard gave in interviews.

I have that same feeling now and remember, presumably, Midnight will be the first expansion in... Maybe in WoW's history, without important development changes.

Cannot wait to see 2026's roadmap.



Completely agree.

Ion himself said his favorite expansion was Legion but it woud probably change during the world soul saga. He said this when TWW was already released iirc, so yeah the director himself was setting either Midnight or TLT as the next Legion, and he was probably refering to Midnight as TLT wouldn't be that far on development yet.

[Nymrohd]

Ion himself said his favorite expansion was Legion but it woud probably change during the world soul saga. He said this when TWW was already released iirc, so yeah the director himself was setting either Midnight or TLT as the next Legion, and he was probably refering to Midnight as TLT wouldn't be that far on development yet.

Ion is trying to sell a product.