Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Raetary]

It DOES feel strange that there's no promo for Midnight, the Expac is a month away. We tend to get lots of promotional stuff within the 3 month period to launch, hyping up the expansion. I don't know why it's been so silent for Midnight... :/

They have been promoting it, however the ads are mostly centered on Player Housing and those fast food cross promos.

[milkmustache]

I think we'll begin to see the heavy Midnight promo for players with subs come next week with the prepatch event launching. The launch cinematic should come along with that.

[Reive]

You can't do much marketing if the biggest feature of the expansion after housing is making the core gameplay of the game worse.

[Joshuaj]

Every day, I'm more grateful I only play with the base UI, cause seeing addon fans cry is legit so funny to me LMAOOO

Like, here I am genuinely having more fun with the updates, meanwhile y'all are here like "This isn't nearly as cool as that 1 UI I had for years! I can't play the game anymore without it!", and it's low-key hilarious. Y'all have been so desensitized by the addon stuff, that as soon as they leave, you legit can't play the game how it's meant to be played. Well, now is the time y'all learned! Trust me, it's not as hard as y'all claim. Good luck.

[Polybius]

Every day, I'm more grateful I only play with the base UI, cause seeing addon fans cry is legit so funny to me LMAOOO

Like, here I am genuinely having more fun with the updates, meanwhile y'all are here like "This isn't nearly as cool as that 1 UI I had for years! I can't play the game anymore without it!", and it's low-key hilarious. Y'all have been so desensitized by the addon stuff, that as soon as they leave, you legit can't play the game how it's meant to be played. Well, now is the time y'all learned! Trust me, it's not as hard as y'all claim. Good luck.

I don’t want to shit on it because there are some beautiful UIs out there if you’re creative (and not the WeakAuras kind). But also, I always found many addons laggy, full of errors, and a burden to fix every time there’s a new patch.

It was counterproductive to performance boost for me. I have low sympathy for the M+ addon users when I hear the same old mockery that having less addons means you perform low - as a M+ high keystone healer, it’s bs.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

As far as I can tell they've been moving a lot of the marketing towards Sports Events so its extremely non visible to anyone except for the most clued in, Faries has a sports background so I'm not surprised they're utilizing that to market World of Warcraft and Midnight. Both in the NHL and NFL so far and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Super Bowl ad (although, I am opposed to that type of spend cause its just ridiculous. But lmao if it does happen...)

I've been seeing the usual ads through Social Media and sponsored links so, the marketing is alive in that sense. Again, we see the usual I assume. I don't know TLT changes their perspective it feels like if this is the bog standard marketing from TWW then I don't really see why the"climax expansion" would change their calculations because they would then be looking towards 14.0 and the next Saga anyways.

[Alanar]

I don’t want to shit on it because there are some beautiful UIs out there if you’re creative (and not the WeakAuras kind). But also, I always found many addons laggy, full of errors, and a burden to fix every time there’s a new patch.

It was counterproductive to performance boost for me. I have low sympathy for the M+ addon users when I hear the same old mockery that having less addons means you perform low - as a M+ high keystone healer, it’s bs.

That was my take on it ad well. There are just better, more functional uis out there, that look cool. The adjustmen to the standard stuff is what ever for me. Dont really care, Il manage.

In the end its probably a good thing.

[Combatbutler]

Umbric's main problem as a character is his deeply stupid name and they missed a golden opportunity to have it be an alias.

And he chose one of the powers, you pretty much should not meddle with. A more successful Umbric is good old Astalor and then there is of course Umbrics major character flaw, he is simply not untrustworthy, since his word is worthless. Which can be of course good for storytelling, if used properly.

[Foolicious]

It is? I felt we learned nothing from it. It really just frames the blood elf magisters as hypocrits; they were ok with fel and torturing Naaru but Void is a step too far!

And Horde vs Alliance is so weird because we have reached complete thematic inversion; the Horde are the conservative established civilizations and the Alliance are the iconoclasts.

There's the one comment from umbric about dar'khan thats interesting: "Who would choose Death when they could possess even one crumb of the infinite"

Other than that its worldbuilding stuff for major expansion characters. Nothing wrong with that though. Lots of those pre expansion stories did just that.

[Kiivar86]

Every day, I'm more grateful I only play with the base UI, cause seeing addon fans cry is legit so funny to me LMAOOO

Like, here I am genuinely having more fun with the updates, meanwhile y'all are here like "This isn't nearly as cool as that 1 UI I had for years! I can't play the game anymore without it!", and it's low-key hilarious. Y'all have been so desensitized by the addon stuff, that as soon as they leave, you legit can't play the game how it's meant to be played. Well, now is the time y'all learned! Trust me, it's not as hard as y'all claim. Good luck.

Base UI user here too, never used addons, and I'm the reverse. I hate the feel. The personal resource display got bloated, they removed the ability to see some cooldowns on it and the cooldown manager itself is clunky, and don't get me started on trying to edit this UI itself.

In just a few days my interest has cratered. I'll give it some more time to see if I can wrestle things into a way I at least can stand but as it is right now, I may well unsub for a while.

[whoisqnx]

Base UI user here too, never used addons, and I'm the reverse. I hate the feel. The personal resource display got bloated, they removed the ability to see some cooldowns on it and the cooldown manager itself is clunky, and don't get me started on trying to edit this UI itself.

In just a few days my interest has cratered. I'll give it some more time to see if I can wrestle things into a way I at least can stand but as it is right now, I may well unsub for a while.

im the complete reverse, i genuinely enjoy the game right now and i have no issue using the base UI. I do what most of the playerbase does, get the highest loot from vaults, push to 3K, clear normal and HC, collect things i actually want, etc. None of this requires abissimal ammount of information provided by WAs or other addons.

[Limayria]

Base UI user here too, never used addons, and I'm the reverse. I hate the feel. The personal resource display got bloated, they removed the ability to see some cooldowns on it and the cooldown manager itself is clunky, and don't get me started on trying to edit this UI itself.

In just a few days my interest has cratered. I'll give it some more time to see if I can wrestle things into a way I at least can stand but as it is right now, I may well unsub for a while.

Yeah they really fucked the PRD, it was the largest game feel improvement they've made to the ui in a long time for me and is one of the only things I want when I play classic and now we have this ugly static bar on screen

[Super Dickmann]

And he chose one of the powers, you pretty much should not meddle with. A more successful Umbric is good old Astalor and then there is of course Umbrics major character flaw, he is simply not untrustworthy, since his word is worthless. Which can be of course good for storytelling, if used properly.

The main thing that sets him apart from the Astalor type is that he very much believes that there isn't a trade-off involved and there is a golden solution. The story flat out says and even (intentionally?) makes the point even clearer when, as he's considering Dar'khan after Dar'khan had already helped kill off most of Quel'thalas he still thinks he could've fixed it.

The trouble with Blizzard not making Rommath a strawman is that even when the villain is a strawman, ala Sylvanas in BFA, they often manage to make the heroes look terrible and unsympathetic (Sadfang, Baine, Aethas etc.). But when the antagonist is actually given a shot it just makes it more glaring. In the story itself, there's no skimping that even just looking through the initial tear opened up has Umbric crowded by whispers to kill his friends and that he knows better, something which his reasoning later calls back to. Throughout Midnight, Rommath's concerns are all merited - Alleria and the void elves do destroy the Sunwell, Umbric does open a hole in the world through which monsters invade after beating up Rommath's guards. At the end of the opening, Xal'atath succeeds and the means of her success only happen because of Alleria being possessed in the way she is.

The story not having everyone hug it out earlier and instead having them respond mostly sensibly based on their personality and goals makes the ending, where they contractually must hug each other and accept that everything, even the cosmic force of consumption and entropy is fine in moderation even more absurd. It's similar to how the decision to have Kul Tiras react sensibly to their ruler's daughter killing him on behalf of peace with orcs who later invade them anyway makes them (and Jaina) inexplicably becoming peaceniks apropo of nothing dumber, since the actual sensible story development isn't hypothetical. The writers clearly thought about it then deliberately chose to back off.

[Hearthfinder]

Looking at the view counts of every series, i think they just don't think its worthwhile anymore.

Legacies more or less flopped, almost 3 years in and not a single short has had over a million views.
Afterlives didn't do much better, with only the Bastion short standing out at 3.5 million.

However Threads of Destiny has almost a million, just a year in.
And Alleria Light and Shadow is by far the most popular short they have released to date, with over 8 million views already, making it their biggest animated short.
So the popularity is still there.

Whatever we are or not getting this time around, i hope they have the sense to go all out for TLT at least.

Uther was literally the last good one, and after Shadowlands they changed the style so it's no longer recognisable.

Burdens of Shaohao -> Warbringers were works of art.

Put in the love and resources, and it'll be successful. Cut the marketing budget, and people won't get as excited.

[Sondrelk]

Uther was literally the last good one, and after Shadowlands they changed the style so it's no longer recognisable.

Burdens of Shaohao -> Warbringers were works of art.

Put in the love and resources, and it'll be successful. Cut the marketing budget, and people won't get as excited.

The Threads of Destiny was pretty good I thought. Obviously overshadowed by how the Nerubian plotline didnt really end up going anywhere after the first patch. But good nonetheless. Not the least because it gave us the only time Xal'atath looks like the evil eldritch entity puppeteering a corpse she so rarely is in-game.

[Hitei]

Uther was literally the last good one, and after Shadowlands they changed the style so it's no longer recognisable.

Burdens of Shaohao -> Warbringers were works of art.

Put in the love and resources, and it'll be successful. Cut the marketing budget, and people won't get as excited.

Bad take. Ansurek's was great.

[Cheezits]

It's similar to how the decision to have Kul Tiras react sensibly to their ruler's daughter killing him on behalf of peace with orcs who later invade them anyway makes them (and Jaina) inexplicably becoming peaceniks apropo of nothing dumber, since the actual sensible story development isn't hypothetical. The writers clearly thought about it then deliberately chose to back off.

To be fair, we don't know if this is true as Kul Tiras (and Kul Tirans that don't rhyme with Baina or Baelia) has never appeared again after Nazjatar. Considering they whipped the Zandalari they make the most sense to still hate each other, they just don't get any screentime to confirm it.

[Hearthfinder]

I should rephrase that because it was needlessly harsh, but the style of those shorts did drastically change and if you preferred the old one, then you're out of luck.

I remember how incredibly excited the community used to get about them. Gul'dan, Azshara, Jaina, etc. All truly epic content. (Obviously, the Sylvanas one was divisive.)

Then it all sort of stopped. I never saw anyone get all giddy about the videos since Shadowlands.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Honestly, Ansurek was great and it portrayed Xal'atath in the right way and honestly if they hadn't messed it up with the confrontation at the Beledar I genuinely think Xal'atath would still be compelling and interesting because at least the mystery box is "fine" if it is dangerous and unimpeded with no way of stopping it. Cause it keeps the suspense and the "What the fuck is going on" vibe.

Yes, I know pet peeve around the Beledar confrontation defanging Xal'ataths character. But, I just really think they could've done something else or written that better.

If you put out great Warcraft Media, people will watch it as seen with the Alleria Short. But, a lot recently has felt like we've lacked a good Direction or guiding light forward that can project the World of Azeroth in a way that is both engaging but also immersive to follow.

(I have noticed that they're currently looking for a Brand Marketing Associate Director for the Warcraft Team and a Senior Director Head of Brand Marketing for the Warcraft IP, so who knows.)

[milkmustache]

Then it all sort of stopped. I never saw anyone get all giddy about the videos since Shadowlands.

I think the transition from long time lore figure POVs to new characters has been a big reason for that.