Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Khaza-R]

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.

I get what you mean. Personally if it weren't for the alt heritage sets (that I think were dick to lock behind a FOMO event in the first place) I probably would not have really bothered with Lemix at all.

I also think that's somewhat the double-edged sword of remixes. The more popular the expansion, the more likely people probably completed stuff in it and the less appealing it is outside of very select items.

[Hitei]

I get what you mean. Personally if it weren't for the alt heritage sets (that I think were dick to lock behind a FOMO event in the first place) I probably would not have really bothered with Lemix at all.

It means we'll finally get those other two mechagnome armor sets matching the rust and silver body augments when they eventually do BfA remix.

[DenPhoenix]

I get what you mean. Personally if it weren't for the alt heritage sets (that I think were dick to lock behind a FOMO event in the first place) I probably would not have really bothered with Lemix at all.

I also think that's somewhat the double-edged sword of remixes. The more popular the expansion, the more likely people probably completed stuff in it and the less appealing it is outside of very select items.

Blocking the alternate colors of heritage in LR is really weird. Things like this shouldn’t be FOMO content, especially when many other races get their alternate heritage appearances either just like that or through other quests.

[Darkarath]

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.

I'm very hyped for Midnight, but also very worried about the lore disaster that it could be. I have hope because what I have seen of Midnight (not much regarding story and quests, honestly) and how the main characters are portrayed in Blood Ties is fine. To be fair I'm excited because I know that I would love the expansion just for Delves, Quel'thalas and Zul'aman. Both zones look stunning. I also love the addon changes and I totally support the direction that Blizzard has taken regarding this particular topic.

I feel that it's too soon to talk about TLT, especially since Midnight will have without a doubt some pretty major lore bombs. So we'll have to wait to see how the story advances.

To summarize, gameplay wise WoW is and will still be in Midnight an all time high. Just for that I know that I will love Midnight. Regarding the lore, I'm cautiously optimistic, but the interest in this cosmic story is nowhere close to Cataclysm, MoP, WotlK, Legion or BfA. Although the narrative was vastly improved in TWW. They just need a more interesting story.

[micwini]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

[Therougetitan]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

Gameplay is the main reason to play WoW. It is fluid and more often than not feels good. That is why most people play wow the story is only background noise. If someone is playing WoW mainly for the story then that is sad. There are way better stories out there.

[Lady Atia]

Gameplay is the main reason to play WoW. It is fluid and more often than not feels good. That is why most people play wow the story is only background noise. If someone is playing WoW mainly for the story then that is sad. There are way better stories out there.

Gameplay and after 20 years, the collections. And modern wow lore is just as good (or bad if you dont like it) as it was back during wotlk/cata.

[Super Dickmann]

To summarize, gameplay wise WoW is and will still be in Midnight an all time high. Just for that I know that I will love Midnight. Regarding the lore, I'm cautiously optimistic, but the interest in this cosmic story is nowhere close to Cataclysm, MoP, WotlK, Legion or BfA. Although the narrative was vastly improved in TWW. They just need a more interesting story.

Midnight's class rework being underbaked is a good reason why what made DF and TWW stand out, more so than their boring and marginally improved story/world respectively, is highly likely to buy it in the ass. Content cadence and class design are kings, SL didn't die due to its abysmal plot but due to the fact that Korthia lasted slightly longer than the Holy Roman Empire.

I expect 12.0 to be poor in comparison to 10.0 and 11.0.

- - - Updated - - -

But Cataclysm is in a weird spot for me as I dislike the main villain from it Deathwing but it's still one of my favorite expansions because it got a bunch of cool zones and enemies. Naga, Faceless Ones, Demons, Elementals, demigods, elemental lords, dragon aspects, faction war etc. I don't like faction wars anymore but at that time I still did so it was a plus. And I like all the starting zones and revamps to update the lore on old zones.

Oh, yeah, I don't say that to shit on Cataclysm. That it works as well as it does story-wise despite Deathwing being so terrible an antagonist is something that other expansions (TBC/SL) come completely fuck up plotwise. Cata's content release was anemic, but as much as it annoyed me at the time, the world revamp, worldbuilding and faction content was uniformly the best it's been (Horde-side, for its main races). It was and will remain the most ambitious since Vanilla in this respect and it did so with basically nothing to work with after the previous two had fully spent WC3.

[justwatching]

I play plenty of RPGs mainly for the gameplay and in the case of WoW I dont think I've ever paid attention to anything happening in the main story.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

But it doesn't matter, literally we cannot change this situation because the Content Creators accepted that rocking the boat was not appropriate even post Blizzcon 2023. By now its' far too late to even inform the Warcraft Team leadership and the Narrative Team that this wasn't acceptable.

The gameplay side have literally told us to shut the fuck up at every avenue because they ascertain the Intellectual Property and the Franchise value is inherently in the Gameplay rather than the Story. Pervasive thoughts such as that Warcraft is a "copycat" franchise that has no inherent value and its' stories are completely meaningless and for idiots and morons who should realize that the state of the Story is a punishment upon them for even taking this seriously or that there's no reasonable reason to expect better quality because "this is how its' always been" has become the status quo.

So again, I think this is so funny because again the Warcraft Team has made it clear they do not give a flying fuck and have put out Maria Hamilton (bless her soul, pretty god awful from them to do that.) for slaughter as she's the only one who responds to questions regarding the Narrative Team and Narrative direction of the game with no clear cut leadership above that in charge of this mess stepping forth while we can clearly see a withdrawal of investment due to the absurdity of Voidstorm and what it implies about how little money they want to invest because to them its a loss leader only at this point.

The game was rigged from the start, pray they don't alter it even further. Especially within the fact that any reactionary decision seems to just make them angrier as seen with them creating this Worldsoul Saga after the "Book of Warcraft" due to Shadowbringers and Endwalker making them feel inadequate.

[Hitei]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

There are a very large number of both games (even RPGs) and movies that operate wholly on good gameplay or great audiovisuals. Vibe is also much more about those things than the narrative or story-based worldbuilding.

[Lady Atia]

But it doesn't matter, literally we cannot change this situation because the Content Creators accepted that rocking the boat was not appropriate even post Blizzcon 2023. By now its' far too late to even inform the Warcraft Team leadership and the Narrative Team that this wasn't acceptable.

The gameplay side have literally told us to shut the fuck up at every avenue because they ascertain the Intellectual Property and the Franchise value is inherently in the Gameplay rather than the Story. Pervasive thoughts such as that Warcraft is a "copycat" franchise that has no inherent value and its' stories are completely meaningless and for idiots and morons who should realize that the state of the Story is a punishment upon them for even taking this seriously.

So again, I think this is so funny because again the Warcraft Team has made it clear they do not give a flying fuck and have put out Maria Hamilton for slaughter as she's the only one who responds to questions regarding the Narrative Team and Narrative direction of the game with no clear cut leadership above that in charge of this mess stepping forth while we can clearly see a withdrawal of investment due to the absurdity of Voidstorm and what it implies about how little money they want to invest because to them its a loss leader only at this point.

The game was rigged from the start, pray they don't alter it even further. Especially within the fact that any reactionary decision seems to just make them angrier as seen with them creating this Worldsoul Saga after the "Book of Warcraft" due to Shadowbringers and Endwalker making them feel inadequate.

The fun thing about the sad treadment of poor Maria is that by now, people should have realized that it wasn't Steve's fault what happened to the story (or the parts people dislike, 'cause poor Danuser had to save lore after shitty BfA lol).

:X

[Khaza-R]

Saying "...But the gameplay is good" for an RPG is like saying "Yeah, the writing of this movie sucks, but I watch it for the special effects". Story, worldbuilding and vibe matters.

RPG is such a generic descriptor, I don't think they you can make any meaningful assertion like this.

It really depends what the primary driver in the game is. For something like Baldur's Gate or Final Fantasy its the story. For something like TES, its the world/environment. In WoW its primarily the combat, then world/environment, and then maybe the story.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

The fun thing about the sad treadment of poor Maria is that by now, people should have realized that it wasn't Steve's fault what happened to the story (or the parts people dislike, 'cause poor Danuser had to save lore after shitty BfA lol).

:X

I don't really like the Steve Danuser argument either, its' basically become a "He's gone now and now the problems are over" which is certainly not the case considering the current situation we're in is that internally they're all hanging from a vehicle they have no control over and just unsure on how to finish what they've started.

There's a lot of very weird pervasive toxic talking points popping up that do not address the basic reality that Narrative/Story is ultimately not worth it for a mega conglomerate and again the only reason you provide more investment and funding for it is because you perceive there's further growth potential and when you recognize we're talking about World of Warcraft its' really no wonder that actually caring about Story becomes a no-go due to loss leading status and the incentives do not play out in any way that benefits the fact this is a passive income strategy at this point.

The marketing of the World Soul Saga was done for the short term interest it generated, not for anything else and certainly at this point with the bizarre oddities starting to stack up like the "Dark Heart" being in the Collector's Edition. It just sounds to me like everythings' on fire with a clearly panicked and completely unsteady situation from everyone involved.

[Super Dickmann]

I don't really like the Steve Danuser argument either, its' basically become a "He's gone now and now the problems are over" which is certainly not the case considering the current situation we're in is that internally they're all hanging from a vehicle they have no control over and just unsure on how to finish what they've started.

There's a lot of very weird pervasive toxic talking points popping up that do not address the basic reality that Narrative/Story is ultimately not worth it for a mega conglomerate and again the only reason you provide more investment and funding for it is because you perceive there's further growth potential and when you recognize we're talking about World of Warcraft its' really no wonder that actually caring about Story becomes a no-go due to loss leading status and the incentives do not play out in any way that benefits the fact this is a passive income strategy at this point.

Have you considered that the story isn't bad because there's not cash investment in it, but because those writing it are poor? Considering the highest level of cash investment in the franchise and purely story content (30 mins of Sadfang at the expense of actual patches lol) was BFA, the most thoroughly wretched and damaging story in the franchise, while the best received (WC3/SC1) were done on shoestring budgets by comparison with not even the ability to produce what is routine nowadays? That some of the best story content is in unvoiced quests and descriptions whereas the most operatic and high investment, the ones the writers care about the most, is among the worst?

There's an extremely tiresome strain of reasoning that it's the money men who're responsible for bad story quality, but that's self-serving nonsense. There's no business reasoning to permit the Sadfang Chronicles to eat up as much budget as they did to lead up to a conclusion (Faction unity, world peace) that the game at the time didn't even have the ability to implement and thus existed for its own sake. Something can be made with heart and money and still suck. A truly apathetic central team letting writers write whatever so long as it's spellchecked can, and often does, result in impressive writing when given to people with ability and ideas, it hasn't because there's nothing there, not because of some suppression.

To take an out of Blizzard example, Final Fantasy completely shat itself despite putting nearly every egg in the story basket and it isn't for lack of trying.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

There's a lot of very weird pervasive toxic talking points popping up that do not address the basic reality that Narrative/Story is ultimately not worth it for a mega conglomerate and again the only reason you provide more investment and funding for it is because you perceive there's further growth potential and when you recognize we're talking about World of Warcraft its' really no wonder that actually caring about Story becomes a no-go due to loss leading status and the incentives do not play out in any way that benefits the fact this is a passive income strategy at this point.

They are willing to invest in

Novels
Shorts
Knowledge compendiums
Exploring books
Audio dramas
Comics
CGI cinematic’s
Ever increasing voice acting.

The problem is not money people deeming the story not worth an investment, they have been investing in it non stop and more and more. The problem is the writers that money goes being various degrees of awful.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Have you considered that the story isn't bad because there's not cash investment in it, but because those writing it are poor? Considering the highest level of cash investment in the franchise and purely story content (30 mins of Sadfang at the expense of actual patches lol) was BFA, the most thoroughly wretched and damaging story in the franchise, while the best received (WC3/SC1) were done on shoestring budgets by comparison with not even the ability to produce what is routine nowadays? That some of the best story content is in unvoiced quests and descriptions whereas the most operatic and high investment, the ones the writers care about the most, is among the worst?

There's an extremely tiresome strain of reasoning that it's the money men who're responsible for bad story quality, but that's self-serving nonsense. There's no business reasoning to permit the Sadfang Chronicles to eat up as much budget as they did to lead up to a conclusion (Faction unity, world peace) that the game at the time didn't even have the ability to implement and thus existed for its own sake. Something can be made with heart and money and still suck. A truly apathetic central team letting writers write whatever so long as it's spellchecked can, and often does, result in impressive writing when given to people with ability and ideas, it hasn't because there's nothing there, not because of some suppression.

To take an out of Blizzard example, Final Fantasy completely shat itself despite putting nearly every egg in the story basket and it isn't for lack of trying.

That's a different problem entirely at this point, we're dealing with a matryoshka doll of issues at this point. There isn't just a singular issue we have multiple issues at this hour.

Ultimately, I never really wanted Story Marketing to take place with this franchise. If we have a good story then thats' cool and if not then that's fine too we've survived many expansions with dogwater. The game is really good and so the entire thing just comes off as they wanted to eat their cake and have it too in so many ways for maximized gains.

[Marlamin]

It would, but they're gauging how much and if that is problematic or not/also optimizing stuff still. It'll get raised at some point.

And just like that, they raised it to 250 without a patch in just a hotfix. Expecting even higher amounts as they can start actually patching performance issues.

[Khaza-R]

I think also its a cultural issue at Blizzard itself that goes back to Metzen and the growth of their franchises in the post-golden era. When you have a creative director who has no problem treating their own creations with little care or continuity, then why would you suddenly care about consistency as a peon writer?

[Super Dickmann]

That's a different problem entirely at this point, we're dealing with a matryoshka doll of issues at this point. There isn't just a singular issue we have multiple issues at this hour.

Ultimately, I never really wanted Story Marketing to take place with this franchise. If we have a good story then thats' cool and if not then that's fine too we've survived many expansions with dogwater. The game is really good and so the entire thing just comes off as they wanted to eat their cake and have it too in so many ways for maximized gains.

You took their marketing too much at face value, which is dangerous in general, but especially when it comes to Blizzard who hadn't put out a story with more than mild acclaim since 2015 and with good acclaim in 20 years. Their claim, in practice, is that the story content they would produce would be less shit. DF is extremely boring and TWW is completely disjointed, but the former is basically harmless save in the respects it is the most like SL/BFA (Gilneas) and the latter is the same (lol Arathi) but couples it with having fairly decent (by Blizzard standards) moment to moment writing and worldbuilding. In this low aim, they succeeded.

Now, does that make the saga more than a marketing stunt? Actually, yes, though it's hard to tell if it's in a good way now that we've seen a part of it. I'll say this about Steve Danuser, the man had probably the worst moment to moment dialogue writing of all time under his oversight, but his plots were fairly coherent on their own terms and managed to begin and end solving most of the central topics. They didn't gyrate wildly from topic to topic and when an element was introduced it generally came back. The skeleton of the story that was plain in TWW - Nerubians leading to Undermine leading to Not!Harandar, through the throughlines of the na'vi and the Black Blood, with the tease for future stories being the Arathi and the Beledar as a naaru ship makes considerably more sense than what we actually got.