Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Cheezits]

Sounds like what folks have been speculating they would do. Lots of talk in here about what zones might be coalesced/merged in the revamp.

Said speculation was also furthered by a leak from a while back of a whiteboard with a partially sunken Northrend, and zone names with Metzen's handwriting. If I remember right, Zul'drak and Borean Tundra were completely gone. Also a lot of Grizzly Hills was gone or merged into Howling Fjord, with Vordrassil turned into an island.

It came from r/wow and was never sourced.

[Nightshade711]

Customizable lich form @ the barbershop like the balance druid moonkin form would be amazing. Plenty of variation on the maldraxxi lich models for that kind of modular customization, too.

The survey mentions phantasms and chains. Looking to existing examples for inspiration, I could see Lich DK's summoning waves of ghosts that charge forward dealing AOE damage (like the Death Metal Knight boss fight on Darkmoon Island) and using icy chains to pull enemies into the path of those ghost waves (much how Kel'thuzad uses chains for CC in HotS). Maybe summoning spectral hands to drag enemies backward when they get too close to the Lich - like the opposite of Death Grip.

I had an idea a while back for a "radiant song" bard that summoned "memories" of NPCs to do damage. Not as pets but it'd just be the spell visual of the "memory" appearing then striking.
Something like that could be pretty neat for a lich spec. Summon phantasms as a visual to deal damage.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Said speculation was also furthered by a leak from a while back of a whiteboard with a partially sunken Northrend, and zone names with Metzen's handwriting. If I remember right, Zul'drak and Borean Tundra were completely gone. Also a lot of Grizzly Hills was gone or merged into Howling Fjord, with Vordrassil turned into an island.

It came from r/wow and was never sourced.

I mean, its' hard for me to think they would do the Zidormi treatment, I did not really get the vibe from what I heard they would do something this drastic outside of the "need to change" concept. But again if the pipeline is super structured around 4 zones something has to give and especially if OC Zones are also part of The Last Titan.

I think its' going to be very hard to convince people their favorite zones in WoW don't exist any longer and are only able to be visited again through Zidormi. Especially when we know which Northrend zones are likely on the cutting room floor.

To be fair, I don't really care since the initial shock from Quel'thalas Revamp has made me just not really care that much but I certainly think its' going to be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people returning if they make The Last Titan a "Cataclysm 2.0" level of change to Northrend.

I honestly find they have a impossible task on their hand here, its' really hard to thread the needle unless they actually do it properly and even then we know that doesn't work because of the zone amounts. So yeah, I have no inkling of an idea on how they're going to do this.

[Count Zero]

No, I just think there's this weird angle they're taking where Revamps have now become moreso about cost cutting than doing it for the love of the Universe and its reinvestment to generate new fandom. Honestly at this point I think it would've been better to just systematize a structure for revisiting Old Zones than them selling it in small chunks over time.

I feel like you're conflating separate things. Like, I can understand and agree with some of your sentiments, but I think ultimately your frustrations are misdirected.

I have my problem's with the game's direction and leadership decisions, but reusing assets is something they've always done - and I don't think that, in and of itself, speaks to a lack of passion or cost-cutting, at least not more so than has always been the case.

Dragonflight zones felt like they had a ton of love and passion poured into them. TWW started off feeling that way and continued with Undermine. I have a feeling the rest of the xpac felt underbaked because they moved the A team to work on Midnight. I haven't payed much attention to beta but it seems like the revamped zones have gotten a lot of love. The number of zones doesn't really speak to how much work goes into them; from DF and beyond each zone is like 2 or even 3x the size of older ones.

[Marlamin]

I mean contextually, the content output is very much moving in a direction that benefits the corporation moreso than anything else. That's fine if people want that, I just think there's a lot more "art" that should exist than this weirdly structured mess of checklists that they have to adhere to for continual development.

In the end, the game's great and all. But there's just this downscaling of World of Warcraft in the sense of the perspective of caring about Warcraft. I just don't like it at the end of the day because I think this IP has a lot of ways to re-engage and increase engagement but again if it is a cost-benefit analysis then I mean I am not surprised we've ended up here in a way where they just go behind the curtains and continue to slowly chip away at it. Give them the first page draft concepts of everything and then continue on as if you did give them grand scope when in reality it was again just a tourism bureau poster of the location you're going to.

Thankfully the Roadmaps do save the day for me and are ultimately what keeps me engaged enough on top of the Surprises they throw in during expansion cycles these days. Its' just a shame that they're so uninterested in the Setting and World they are shepherds of.

This does not change my perspective that Blizzard Entertainment is in a great position with every franchise and things are going very well. I'm just disappointed from a Lore/Narrative perspective at how brazenly uninterested they are in "meeting the moment".

I agree to a point with the more corporate content output feel, but at the same time this current cadence is something players have been wanting for years. Does that mean smaller but more frequent content drops? Yup. Are they wanting people to keep playing and pay for the expansions even with the increased cadence? Also yup. Given the game's current health, which anecdotally in my circles seems fine, players are still happily eating up this strategy.

I don't think they've actually downscaled their art output, but that the amount of time to produce it in ever increasing detail has gone up. Whether this is due to simply having to do more work and make more assets to keep up with making more modern content (there are way more things involved for making zones than ever before, which I can tell because I name it all) or if its increased outsourcing, the way they're already working ahead on both TLT and beyond TLT (which to be clear, they are), or with time being spent on slowly adapting/modernizing the way they build things (which is also happening), or a combination of all of these.

But allow me to go on a bit of a slightly related rant here (this one has been brewing for a few months). I'm guessing it can't exactly be easy to upscale without losing quality and doing so in a way that big Microsoft won't see as wasteful in an industry that's already being drained of every penny imaginable in multiple ways to e.g. advance things they find more important (like AI). In a way I'm glad Blizzard is still operating as it is and has been allowed to experiment with things like Housing, Remix and Plunderstorm (although that all started pre-acquisition).

My greatest worry right now is that that kind of experimentation will get smoked out to keep the normal content train going, and not by the team itself, but by executives on top. Every time I see someone who worked on experimental content leave (Scarizard, Orlando Salvatore and more recently Josh) that worry increases just a little. I'm currently hoping we'll see a sign of the secret gamemode on the roadmap, because if we don't that might not be a great omen for those kind of passion projects, things that arguably added a flair of fresh air that the game needed.

All to say that I don't think the team is lacking passion or interest, if anything some of the stuff I've seen come out in recent years is very clearly passion-led, but that I am worried that they are being forced to make choices for the continued existence/content cadence of the game that is (somewhat ironically I guess) limiting the amount of things they're putting out. I hope I'm reading the tea leaves wrong and that I'm totally out of touch, either way rant over and I should probably sleep.

[Count Zero]

Said speculation was also furthered by a leak from a while back of a whiteboard with a partially sunken Northrend, and zone names with Metzen's handwriting. If I remember right, Zul'drak and Borean Tundra were completely gone. Also a lot of Grizzly Hills was gone or merged into Howling Fjord, with Vordrassil turned into an island.

It came from r/wow and was never sourced.

Oh, so that's why Marlamin specified they were only drawing on the video itself for speculation

[Cheezits]

All to say that I don't think the team is lacking passion or interest, if anything some of the stuff I've seen come out in recent years is very clearly passion-led, but that I am worried that they are being forced to make choices for the continued existence/content cadence of the game that is (somewhat ironically I guess) limiting the amount of things they're putting out. I hope I'm reading the tea leaves wrong and that I'm totally out of touch, either way rant over and I should probably sleep.

"It's this or nothing" is definitely the driving line behind some things like K'aresh being so patchwork and the rushed-feeling Gilneas and Arathi questlines. I can see a world where 11.2 simply didn't exist while the devs were put double time on Midnight (ala WoD-Legion), though it's not one with a bright future for the game.

People on here will say "I'd rather have no content than bad content" but that would very likely kill the game.

[Marlamin]

Oh, so that's why Marlamin specified they were only drawing on the video itself for speculation

Yeah, while I think that leak does have... substance to it, that is purely a gut feeling (and I have a terrible gut) that I'm not going to publicly put any weight on, just like how I treat all leak season leaks. I think the approach they've taken for Midnight is an actual thing based in fact and that that approach being taken again for TLT would not surprise me. Whether or not that ends up like the Metzen-ish whiteboard drawing remains to be seen, but objectively, it does fit in terms of that approach.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I feel like you're conflating separate things. Like, I can understand and agree with some of your sentiments, but I think ultimately your frustrations are misdirected.

I have my problem's with the game's direction and leadership decisions, but reusing assets is something they've always done - and I don't think that, in and of itself, speaks to a lack of passion or cost-cutting, at least not more so than has always been the case.

Dragonflight zones felt like they had a ton of love and passion poured into them. TWW started off feeling that way and continued with Undermine. I have a feeling the rest of the xpac felt underbaked because they moved the A team to work on Midnight. I haven't payed much attention to beta but it seems like the revamped zones have gotten a lot of love. The number of zones doesn't really speak to how much work goes into them; from DF and beyond each zone is like 2 or even 3x the size of older ones.

Sure, they could still implement the Megazone stylized revamp of Northrend into 2 or 4 zones that may happen. We don't know. I liked the perspective of "reverence" of Northrend but whether or not it means that they won't Zidormi it is anyones' guess. I just don't expect them to deeply care that much and if things have to change then it is what it is which is also a perspective they offered.

I mean in the end we ended up with "The Last Titan was the only expansion" and even when we're in prelude to The Last Titan it will become "The real expansion or real Saga is the 14.0/Next Saga". Point being, we can always kick the can down the road. The convenient thing is they did say development was better and faster with expansion development being better and on a continual schedule but again maybe thats' the Surprises for Midnight and TLT, who knows. I don't know its a lot of rhetoric but when it comes down to actually examine what has been said a year later the entire house of cards have been blown away by the wind.

-snip

You're exactly on the same wavelength as me in this regard, I just want to emphasize that again they didn't really need to market story if again Story content is impossible to budget for because it being seen by higher up than the Warcraft Team as just "money wasting". If the Cinematics Team has been downscaled and the Animated Shorts were never seen as a priority to re-establish as a marketing tool then again it just points to someone in the chain taking one look at these things that both enhances but also should in theory give a return of investment through subscriptions and positive buzz and positive sentiment. But again if ultimately their math is "Piece of Media or Cinematics that costs money and the math just isn't there" then we shouldn't even be in this Saga to begin with.

Again, I'm more infuriated and frustrating with how tone deaf the Blizzcon 2023 "Saga announcement" thing was if they could at any point get someone from Microsofts chain of command to just immediately stop their plans by throwing a banana peel because at the end of the day, I thought things at the end of Dragonflight showed promise but ultimately again its' so easy to just see Story and Story Focused stuff to be turned to dust in front of our eyes that at the end of the day "Why bother" when again Story and the Narrative Team being able to work in their cave in Afghanistan would probably be a much healthier and positive approach than short term pumping a fanbase with someone as important as Metzen and letting the community do the "Well, they were just trying to get you to buy it idiot" routine in the aftermath of all this.

The problem with keeping a lean straight line content lineup is that we're already seeing that it doesn't work and so I don't think they will stop experimentation and exploring different ideas and concepts during Roadmap cycles because ultimately the Catch-Up Gear systems are starting to get louder and louder complaints for each rerun of them implying that both a rework or iteration is necessary in that camp. I'm very much sure that Gamemodes will continue to be a vehicle for growth. But yeah, I am not surprised that they may be shedding talent throughout what must be a hectic environment internally.

Contextually, Housing seems to've found the sweet spot for its implementation based on the general vibe I feel with how tightened the pursestrings have gotten here. The idea of a siloed project getting greenlit like this and on top of that restrictive monetization is shockingly very much not what I expected even if I still think the Blue Post regarding limiting the monetization was a baffling decision from their side.

But yeah, contradictory this seems like a very passionate Warcraft Team but the limitation on the IP and its' spend does seem to make it so that doesn't shine through anymore and again to me its' just been deeply unfortunate when Housing is such a Lore/Narrative/RP/Immersion based function and so its' just deeply bizarre how strict and how downscaled the Story (Art) of Warcraft has become in tow.

So when I speak about passion its' moreso the corporate side, they give zero fucks at this point and it clearly shows with how controlled the environment has become on top of the brickwalling of any sort of dialogue of improving the Story and its situation.

[Joshuaj]

Very curious to see how they handle northrend, also that tease at the end.. Kalimdor & EK revamps after TLT, can't wait!
We're eating so good in the years ahead

I think the idea is that they're gonna do things like Avaloren and whatnot, all while giving us revamps to older areas.

For the next few expacs, this is what I expect:

- Pirates and Islands
- Avaloren
- Outland + Demonic Worlds
- EK
- Kalimdor
- Pandaria
- Maybe a return to AU Draenor? Doubt it though

- - - Updated - - -

If they revamp EK and Kalimdor in their entirety, then Azeroth will primarily be fully modern graphically.

- - - Updated - - -

What I will say is this, do NOT expect a cosmic realm as a primary setting for a bit. The best we'll likely see is a Demon focused expac (With the Outland Revamp and whatnot), but that's it. Not only are Blizzard aware of fans disinterest in places like the Shadowlands, but unlike the Shadowlands, it'd be hard to make an entire expac of a place like the Light. The Gardens of Life and the Domain of Order (if it exists) could be unique settings for a future zone or two, but they likely won't be expansion settings.

[Count Zero]

"It's this or nothing" is definitely the driving line behind some things like K'aresh being so patchwork and the rushed-feeling Gilneas and Arathi questlines. I can see a world where 11.2 simply didn't exist while the devs were put double time on Midnight (ala WoD-Legion), though it's not one with a bright future for the game.

People on here will say "I'd rather have no content than bad content" but that would very likely kill the game.

It's great that they're more nimble with their separate teams, but the stumbles are much more noticeable. Like - the Nightfall rewards being quietly updated with the Karesh patch. Wasn't in any notes, hardly anyone knew about it. Either it should have been in notes somewhere, or it wasn't supposed to happen. We'll never know which!

And stuff like Dastardly Duos - no synergy at all with all the existing content it released alongside (Nightfall, Horrific Visions, might have been a Timewalking week as well). In Dragonflight, anything that was out simultaneously had synergy; it didn't feel like they were competing with one another for your time.

[Joshuaj]

Soon, wild western Badlands WILL be realized in the game! Hearthstone already displays it as wild western, but imma assume it's like that in the canon as well!

If Dawntrail can pull a wild west theme, WoW definitely can! Idk if WoW can pull a Solution 9, but the closest we got is Ulduar and Antorus lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Probably not gonna hear a Lo-Fi city OST in WoW though, and if we do, then shiiieeeettt that'd be cool.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

It's great that they're more nimble with their separate teams, but the stumbles are much more noticeable. Like - the Nightfall rewards being quietly updated with the Karesh patch. Wasn't in any notes, hardly anyone knew about it. Either it should have been in notes somewhere, or it wasn't supposed to happen. We'll never know which!

And stuff like Dastardly Duos - no synergy at all with all the existing content it released alongside (Nightfall, Horrific Visions, might have been a Timewalking week as well). In Dragonflight, anything that was out simultaneously had synergy; it didn't feel like they were competing with one another for your time.

Dastardly Duos was such a strange implementation, but again I think its a good sign they were able to release it even if it didn't really vibe at all. Some things failing and some things succeeding is better than nothing after all. Nightfall was a strange patch overall, honestly. So much more "expectation" than what we ended up with. But, its a nice feedback point for what they can improve on going forward.

Soon, wild western Badlands WILL be realized in the game! Hearthstone already displays it as wild western, but imma assume it's like that in the canon as well!

If Dawntrail can pull a wild west theme, WoW definitely can! Idk if WoW can pull a Solution 9, but the closest we got is Ulduar and Antorus lol.

- - - Updated - - -

Probably not gonna hear a Lo-Fi city OST in WoW though, and if we do, then shiiieeeettt that'd be cool.

Honestly, a Cross-faction Saloon in such a Badlands Revamp sounds neat. I'd love for them to finally execute on a "melting pot location of criminals, adventurers and rag tags" akin to the Shady Rest Inn but less arson and murder mystery.

[Auxis]

Customizable lich form @ the barbershop like the balance druid moonkin form would be amazing. Plenty of variation on the maldraxxi lich models for that kind of modular customization, too.



The survey mentions phantasms and chains. Looking to existing examples for inspiration, I could see Lich DK's summoning waves of ghosts that charge forward dealing AOE damage (like the Death Metal Knight boss fight on Darkmoon Island) and using icy chains to pull enemies into the path of those ghost waves (much how Kel'thuzad uses chains for CC in HotS). Maybe summoning spectral hands to drag enemies backward when they get too close to the Lich - like the opposite of Death Grip.

Id hope that the Lich form would be a CD or a form you build up to/maintain like Void Meta or old Voidform. I know not everyone was a fan of that playstyle but id rather not have another case of a "druid" specific where we are stuck in a form and cant see our character as they are - still mad that Glyph of Stars hasn't gotten a lessened version of it like the Shadowform one did. Stars is JUST SO BLUE so all you get out of it is just seeing the armour models not the colours.

[Xilurm]

Nice little hint there that they're looking to revamp Kalimdor too. Or at least parts of it.

#TeamWorldRevamp is alive and kicking.

[Runick]

I had an idea a while back for a "radiant song" bard that summoned "memories" of NPCs to do damage. Not as pets but it'd just be the spell visual of the "memory" appearing then striking.
Something like that could be pretty neat for a lich spec. Summon phantasms as a visual to deal damage.

I like that idea of a spec whose "summons" not actually pets - they're just spell visuals, but still giving the appearance of calling in minions or otherworldly aid.

Thinking about it more, I like the idea that liches - with their emphasis on soul storage in a phylactery - could be an opportunity to explore the "soul" half of the necromancer fantasy, allowing unholy to retain its identity as the "reanimator/plaguemaster" half of the necromancer fantasy. The lich wouldn't call on physical undead like zombies or abominations, but rather on the souls of the damned - which again, wouldn't be actual summoned pets, just spell visuals. Combine this with some chain stuff (Maw/domination magic) and shadowfrost, and I think you've got a distinct thing going.

Gravechill: Command deathly rime to coalesce on your target, dealing shadowfrost damage and slowing their movement speed by a very small amount, growing in magnitude with every new cast of Rime. (Slow effect and spell visual gets bigger with each cast)
Soul Lash: Channel several whipping strikes with your icy chains over a few seconds, dealing damage and knocking the enemy back a couple of feet with every strike.
Wailing Souls: Summon a line of souls that surge forward, dealing aoe damage.
Chains of Kel'thuzad: Launch a chain, dealing damage to your target. For 3 seconds after hitting an enemy, Chains can be reactivated to launch to an additional enemy, pulling both enemies together and stunning them for .5 seconds. (Can be used to clump enemies in preparation for Wailing Souls)
Vengeful Spirit: Pluck a damned soul from the Maw, sending them toward an enemy at a slow speed over several seconds. The spirit deals more damage the sooner it reaches the enemy. (Encourages enemies to back away, giving the lich more breathing room)
Will of the Lich: Interrupts spellcasting. If the target has an ally within x yards, your target's spell is instead directed at them for a % of the damage the spell would have done to you.
Sunder the Veil: Use your mastery of death to rip open the Veil to the Shadowlands, creating a shadowy wall in front of you. The first enemy to pass through the veil is instantly killed. (Analogous to monk's Touch of Death ability; long cooldown)

I pulled those from other sources and made up a few myself. A lot could also be done around the concept of a phylactery. It could be as simple as a Blood DK-Purgatory-style revive upon receiving fatal damage, or as interactive as the Kel'thuzad Sanctum of Domination encounter where you actually have to enter a lich's phylactery and engage with some kind of gameplay within in order to kill them for good.

Long post, but the point is, I think there's a lot of unique ground they could cover with liches.

Id hope that the Lich form would be a CD or a form you build up to/maintain like Void Meta or old Voidform. I know not everyone was a fan of that playstyle but id rather not have another case of a "druid" specific where we are stuck in a form and cant see our character as they are - still mad that Glyph of Stars hasn't gotten a lessened version of it like the Shadowform one did. Stars is JUST SO BLUE so all you get out of it is just seeing the armour models not the colours.

I think the solution I would go for here is for the lich form to be permanent like a druid shapeshift, but then to just give DK's (and druids) a glyph to fully disable the visual, so they can see their transmog if they wish. Then people who wanna be full-time lich or boomkin can do that, and people who don't wanna be full-time lich or boomkin don't have any visual effects hindering their transmog. Bada-bing bada-boomkin, best of both worlds.

[Nightshade711]

Id hope that the Lich form would be a CD or a form you build up to/maintain like Void Meta or old Voidform. I know not everyone was a fan of that playstyle but id rather not have another case of a "druid" specific where we are stuck in a form and cant see our character as they are - still mad that Glyph of Stars hasn't gotten a lessened version of it like the Shadowform one did. Stars is JUST SO BLUE so all you get out of it is just seeing the armour models not the colours.

Personally, I'd like it to be a permanent form. With a glyph to maybe hide it. If it were customizable like the moonkin form is (or better) then I'd be a major fan of it personally. I just think the cooldown could be something more tied to the summoning of the ghost and/or frost magic.

I feel like the phylactery will probably act like the Night Fae seed soulbind thing tbh - where instead of dying you'd go inside the phylactery to heal up but the phylactery would be able to be destroyed.

[Hearthfinder]

Hopefully the destroyed Northrend map is fake. If there's one thing Cataclysm taught us, it is that revamps should have us leave a place in a better condition than we found it in.

Especially if their goal is, as they say in the video, that we should be able to revisit old places. Modern Blizzard blowing up Northrend in order to tell a high octane story about Iridikron does not achieve that. Since Northrend is a separate island unlike Quel'Thalas, there doesn't really seem to be a need for it either.

It doesn't sound like they want to destroy it though, based on the video. Sounds like they're pretty sentimental about those zones while applying a layer of new story. Definitely changing the look of some zones, I think, since they seem to suggest they want them to flow together like Eversong and Ghostlands.

For me what matters most is that the Scandinavian feel is preserved, in everything from the flora and fauna to the skyboxes and vistas, and of course the music.

Ideally you'll be able to play as some kind of Vrykul Runeweaver or Bard leaving your home village in order defend Northrend against Iridikron's attacks.

[Darkarath]

Well, after the Game Informer video we can confirm two things:

- Northrend will be fully revamped. This was obvious from the very start but still some believed that maybe one or two zones would be left in their past version which would be stupid.

- World revamp incoming. Again, nothing really new as Blizzard has thrown at us multiple hints in the past two years.

Hopefully this interview will finally cleanse the heretic unbelievers in the purifyng flames of the sacred world revamp.

Our moment is coming, brothers and sisters of the new world. The revamp is nigh.

[Jaggler]

There are some things that make me question the leaked Northrend map. Prime among them is the deletion of Grizzly Hills and Howling Fjord, considering they are pretty universally beloved. Considering how closely the stuck to the geography of Quel'thalas, i have doubts that they would alter Northrend that significantly for TLT. But we'll see i guess.