Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Lady Atia]

This thread is straight up Groundhog Day. Yes, modern american live service game plays softball with cozycore bullshit because it's less controversial and more marketable to a general audience. It sucks and there is nothing we can do about it except unsubscribe. Anything else?

I petition that this thread gets locked a certain amount of time after a patch is datamined because once everything is discussed it turns into a dumping ground with little to do with speculation. You have every other thread.

The problem is too many lore "discussions" that totally go out of hand after a few posts and have NOTHING to do with the thread, and not enough discussion about the datamining, upcoming stuff or potential gameplay changes they should do. Even discussing the current patch would be more interesting than another lore "philosophical" debate about cosmic forces or the wish to add right wing propaganda to orc characters because "it's cool".

:X

[Sondrelk]

The problem is too many lore "discussions" that totally go out of hand after a few posts and have NOTHING to do with the thread, and not enough discussion about the datamining, upcoming stuff or potential gameplay changes they should do. Even discussing the current patch would be more interesting than another lore "philosophical" debate about cosmic forces or the wish to add right wing propaganda to orc characters because "it's cool".

:X

We have been over this though. You need a robust lore discussion in order to actually have a debate on what future content we may or may not get. Otherwise the thread would just be individual wishlists over what people might want.

The thread does tend to veer a bit too far into specific topics at times. But that is the nature of a forum like this.

[Khaza-R]

I mean, the original quotes are a bit too close to right wing speech, so it's kinda weird it took them so long to add something to tune them down.

This is certainly a take.

You understand all lines like this are akin to some sort of "propaganda". Its literally them outwardly projecting their beliefs and values. If that ruffles you're feather in a completely fictional setting then you probably need to very unironically touch grass.

[Scyth]

If you asked me to identify who those lines were from with no context I could guess it's from any 95% of the current cast. Let's go ahead and take the strength part of the quote out too because that might hurt someone's feelings

- - - Updated - - -

Every time you guys go "Oh but that just makes sense for that character!" when they either act like a lobotomized senior citizen that just wants to retire and drink tea or a whiny 10 year old that hates adults and don't realize you say it for every single character in the game

Seems like someone hurt your feelings?

[Sondrelk]

I mean it clearly is dramatic convenience but it is also a choice to depict the Arathi as less focused on the Arcane. They could have had mages and just not be good at telemancy or explain that the distance just makes it impossible for them to establish teleportation with the Empire. But the Arathi have very specific and fairly limited archetypes in TWW

That is what the established lore of portal magic already is though. It's a highly specialized field that is supposedly only done by highly specialized, or master mages. Remember that places like Stormwind only has maybe 5-10 portal mages in total. And that is being generous.

[Cheezits]

We have been over this though. You need a robust lore discussion in order to actually have a debate on what future content we may or may not get. Otherwise the thread would just be individual wishlists over what people might want.

I'm not entirely sure on that, considering the only confirmed next content is about a snake god mentioned in a few sentences from the non-canon RPG. 12.2 could be Danuser Metzen's Cloud Cuckoo Land for all we know.

[GeometryWizard]

Seems like someone hurt your feelings?

Hey you won't see me turning portraits of women into fruit bowls all I can do is post on forums

[AOL Instant Messenger]

there have been many "authorities" supported by a religious state who only ever used pseudoscience

Interesting take. Name some.

In other words, I think this is trash world building by spreadsheet with someone really excited to use combinatorics that I hope may well have been discarded by now as a concept. If you try to force power combinations you will only end up with completely artificial concepts that just won't feel right to anyone except our usual apophenic posters.

I’m kind of baffled you’d say this given how solid of a case could be made that the post-Chronicles cosmology overall is completely artificial and its awkwardly compartmentalized structure with little in the way of meaningful interplay aside from competing, especially when combined with the intended equilibrium of forces established post-Shadowlands. Granted, even returning to the prior, less compartmentalized magic of the setting through this channel is a band-aid at best and the correct approach is to scuttle or totally rewrite the cosmology, but I digress.

[Lady Atia]

We have been over this though. You need a robust lore discussion in order to actually have a debate on what future content we may or may not get. Otherwise the thread would just be individual wishlists over what people might want.

The thread does tend to veer a bit too far into specific topics at times. But that is the nature of a forum like this.

Yeah, but no one discusses new lore in Midnight but instead we have people doing "philosophical" debates like they are high on some kind of experimental, russian drug.

I mean I like the lore, and I like discussing it, but it .... gets ... tiring to read some of that stuff here. Sorry.

In other news, interesting enough, one of the gladiator drake recolours is green, which would fit with the Ulatek Isle.

[COBRAstriker]

This thread is straight up Groundhog Day. Yes, modern american live service game plays softball with cozycore bullshit because it's less controversial and more marketable to a general audience. It sucks and there is nothing we can do about it except unsubscribe. Anything else?

I petition that this thread gets locked a certain amount of time after a patch is datamined because once everything is discussed it turns into a dumping ground with little to do with speculation. You have every other thread.

You keep saying this but.. marketable to who? Who exactly is the audience for this? It certainly isn't for og Warcraft fans so.. who is it? This thread itself is kept alive by a dozen (or even less) posters because everyone else gave up. I am genuinely curious in the logic here. WoW did far better 10 years ago in terms of being marketable. WoW isn't selling today on its cinematics, stories or characters, it's selling on gameplay. The truth is that there is no audience for bland, sanitized slop that may as well be written by their HR department. Warcraft lost its entire identity, it's not a franchise which should cater to 'modern sensibilities', and may eventually go the way a ton of other Western IPs went for the exact same reasons, terminated or sold to China or the Saudis. In Karesh the longest questline is about petting bees. There is nothing Warcraft left about retail WoW, everything has been sanded down because some nutcase who averages 20 likes per post on social media can't tell fiction from reality

But this is the same company who made an expansion about a dragon civil war lame, boring and stupid. I see you often taking this position of 'it's this way because it's marketable' and I really don't understand why. A floating, smirking barefoot evil elf can only carry so much. Outside of Porter and his clique, can you genuinely find others who like Midnight's writing? All I'm seeing wall to wall is criticism and complaints, be it from former or current players. We live in the era of low attention spans and clip chimps, a 5 second clip like the one with Eitrigg, Faerin vs Marran or Khadgar floating in a pink wheelchair is enough for people to shit on the game and walk the other way. So in what world is this marketable?

[justwatching]

Havent seen one of the infernals yet but it seems like Remix P5 adds literally nothing except catchup mechanics. Expected but still disappointing.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Yeah, i know it will stay relevant throughout Midnight and TLT, but I hope we can do some more grounded stuff after we are done with the WSS and the cosmic stuff can take a back seat.

Wouldn't mind going back to a Azeroth focus too, I'll be fine with both cosmic route or more Azeroth focus route. But they can easily have stronger villains even if they focus on a smaller scale. Kinda like how aliens would still get their asses kicked by vampires or demons in other franchises. So a new Hakkar, Azshara, or old god could easily surpass the power of Argus, Zovaal, Dimensues, and even Xal'atath and Kil'jaeden/Archimonde and N'zoth while being focus on a smaller scale event due to their motives and agendas.

More marketable how? A lot of the big IPs right now are all much more mature and darker than WoW. Even in the fantasy realm specifically Baldur's Gate and Witcher are much darker and less kiddycore than modern WoW. Mainstream audiences don't want to be treated like 4 year olds watching Dora the Explorer. There's a reason why story discussion has died down so much that the only diehards left are the ones addicted to cosmic force slop or Portergauge praising every single questline and story beat he sees

WoW's lore is still way more interesting than Witcher and BG3 as well as all those other fantasy settings.

The only fantasy game setting lore that could rival or surpass Warcraft is the lore of Elder Scrolls.

I’m kind of baffled you’d say this given how solid of a case could be made that the post-Chronicles cosmology overall is completely artificial and its awkwardly compartmentalized structure with little in the way of meaningful interplay aside from competing, especially when combined with the intended equilibrium of forces established post-Shadowlands. Granted, even returning to the prior, less compartmentalized magic of the setting through this channel is a band-aid at best and the correct approach is to scuttle or totally rewrite the cosmology, but I digress.

Chronicles 5 or the Last Titan should reveal some massive surprise to break the entire 6 forces. And I'm banking on the Twisting Nether being among one of the key factors. The Twisting Nether is the only realm that doesn't appear in the Cosmic chart so the Titans probably don't want other beings to find out too much about it as even they themselves don't understand it fully. It's also the infinite plane that connects to all timelines and all realities. Might be the thing that could break or make all realities too.

[Ersula]

You keep saying this but.. marketable to who? Who exactly is the audience for this? It certainly isn't for og Warcraft fans so.. who is it? This thread itself is kept alive by a dozen (or even less) posters because everyone else gave up. I am genuinely curious in the logic here. WoW did far better 10 years ago in terms of being marketable.

MMORPG players. It's basically a staple of the genre because Ultima Online did it first.

Housing has never been one of my priorities but a huge chunk of the people I've played with have been asking for it. And that includes some sweaty players.

[micwini]

You keep saying this but.. marketable to who? Who exactly is the audience for this? It certainly isn't for og Warcraft fans so.. who is it? This thread itself is kept alive by a dozen (or even less) posters because everyone else gave up. I am genuinely curious in the logic here. WoW did far better 10 years ago in terms of being marketable. WoW isn't selling today on its cinematics, stories or characters, it's selling on gameplay. The truth is that there is no audience for bland, sanitized slop that may as well be written by their HR department. Warcraft lost its entire identity, it's not a franchise which should cater to 'modern sensibilities', and may eventually go the way a ton of other Western IPs went for the exact same reasons, terminated or sold to China or the Saudis. In Karesh the longest questline is about petting bees. There is nothing Warcraft left about retail WoW, everything has been sanded down because some nutcase who averages 20 likes per post on social media can't tell fiction from reality

But this is the same company who made an expansion about a dragon civil war lame, boring and stupid. I see you often taking this position of 'it's this way because it's marketable' and I really don't understand why. A floating, smirking barefoot evil elf can only carry so much. Outside of Porter and his clique, can you genuinely find others who like Midnight's writing? All I'm seeing wall to wall is criticism and complaints, be it from former or current players. We live in the era of low attention spans and clip chimps, a 5 second clip like the one with Eitrigg, Faerin vs Marran or Khadgar floating in a pink wheelchair is enough for people to shit on the game and walk the other way. So in what world is this marketable?

It is for everyone, which is the entire problem. Inoffensive to the lowest common denominator. As soon as large companies start ignoring social media, this shit vanishes.

[LarryWithTheWeatherReport]

Who exactly is the audience for this? It certainly isn't for og Warcraft fans so.. who is it?

I guess me?

I loved Warcraft 3 as a kid and I finally bought Reforge earlier this year during the summer sale and still love it just as much and perhaps even more now since I understand more of the world editor for it and plenty of alternate timeline campaigns to play with more stuff from the Hive Workshop. Replaying the campaign and I loved it and even got WC3 Reforge Cenarius, Chaos Grom, and Archimonde to a higher tier of power compared to all villains in the past few expansions besides Dark Heart Xal'atath.

And I still love WoW a lot especially Midnight which seems way more interesting than TWW, Dragonflight, and Shadowlands. Love all the starting zones especially having a big troll content back. And I am especially even more hyped for the Last Titan because I know we'll be dealing with some crazy and cool stuff again there. And we'll get to meet the GOAT Sargeras again.

[Kiivar86]

Havent seen one of the infernals yet but it seems like Remix P5 adds literally nothing except catchup mechanics. Expected but still disappointing.

I know it was a slim hope but a part of me was still holding out hope for a surprise return of the mage tower after all. But failing that, something new.

But yeah that...I didn't have high hopes after there was no article posted yesterday. Figured if there was anything big, they'd have hyped it up.

[DenPhoenix]

Khadgar floating in a pink wheelchair

Ehhhhh, would’ve been pretty cool if Blizzard gave us all a month of subscription every time that guy mentions Khadgar’s wheelchair.

Btw, godddddddd, dude, the reason he’s using that wheelchair is because it was made by Modera. Alleria is outright hinting at the romance between Modera and Khadgar.

I’m pretty sure you don’t even play WoW, so you haven’t heard that line.

Just stop bringing it up and crying about it already.

[Khaza-R]

I know it was a slim hope but a part of me was still holding out hope for a surprise return of the mage tower after all. But failing that, something new.

But yeah that...I didn't have high hopes after there was no article posted yesterday. Figured if there was anything big, they'd have hyped it up.

There would probably be even more rage if they did something like that and then the people who didn't previously care or bother with it have to catch up during the holidays.

[Kiivar86]

There would probably be even more rage if they did something like that and then the people who didn't previously care or bother with it have to catch up during the holidays.

Yeah and like I said, slim hope of mine. I would have enjoyed it but figured it wouldn't happen. But I also figured there'd be more than what seems to be there now (which is barely anything).

Ah well.

[justwatching]

I know it was a slim hope but a part of me was still holding out hope for a surprise return of the mage tower after all. But failing that, something new.

But yeah that...I didn't have high hopes after there was no article posted yesterday. Figured if there was anything big, they'd have hyped it up.

Yeah in all honesty the roadmap is borderline false advertising. It seems like the only thing they added are the infernals and the Threads to upgrade items beyond 740.