Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[whoisqnx]

tbh, if we go against the Titans he is a natural ally if he can overcome his hatred for the dragonflights, which should be possible, considering, they are new blessed by Azeroth, not the Titans.

Exactly. Also, him and Thrall in a "enemy of my enemy is my friend" partnership perhaps? When I first saw Iridikron's concept art where is half naked and his powers in one of the cinematics where he destroys those Constructs my first thought was Shaman Tank. I can totally see him as the guide for them...using the earth itself againts the Titans.

[Enrif]

For all that people complain about humans, orcs and elves, at least those groups have different things going on. The trolls are seriously just copy pasted..

So much this, yes. There is a reason that troll raid/dungeon was a meme, because they are everywhere. Heck, they were the only race that got a dedicated dungeon in SL, where everything else was not tied to any of the races, even Ardenwaeld wasn't big on night elf focus.

[Ersula]

tbh, if we go against the Titans he is a natural ally if he can overcome his hatred for the dragonflights, which should be possible, considering, they are new blessed by Azeroth, not the Titans.

This is the biggest reason why we *won't* be going against the titans. For all the things they did, the Titans did protect us from the old gods. Irridikron was willing to kill everyone on azeroth for revenge: He is not our friend on any level.

[Hitei]

This is the biggest reason why we *won't* be going against the titans. For all the things they did, the Titans did protect us from the old gods. Irridikron was willing to kill everyone on azeroth for revenge: He is not our friend on any level.

They didn't protect anyone. They showed up to a world that was already under the control of the Old Gods (and which was implied to be significantly less chaotic or turbo evil than they claim) and took over. They didn't even help the then natives of the planet, the elementals, after defeating the old gods, but instead locked them in turbo jail as well.

The Titans, in case you have forgotten the plot of Wrath, were ALSO willing to atomize the entire planet and kill everyone on it to defeat their enemy.

[Jaggler]

This is the biggest reason why we *won't* be going against the titans. For all the things they did, the Titans did protect us from the old gods. Irridikron was willing to kill everyone on azeroth for revenge: He is not our friend on any level.

The Titans didn't protect us from the Old Gods, they couldn't care less whether the denizens of Azeroth survived the Black Empire. They only care about the World Soul, the denizens of Azeroth were just collateral.

[Ersula]

They didn't protect anyone. They showed up to a world that was already under the control of the Old Gods (and which was implied to be significantly less chaotic or turbo evil than they claim) and took over. They didn't even help the then natives of the planet, the elementals, after defeating the old gods, but instead locked them in turbo jail as well.

Even then they still made moral life possible, unintentionally. And they clearly don't unilaterally feel that way. At the very least Eonar & Elune care.

The Titans didn't protect us from the Old Gods, they couldn't care less whether the denizens of Azeroth survived the Black Empire. They only care about the World Soul, the denizens of Azeroth were just collateral.

That's a good point, but how do you think Iridikron is going to feel about the Prime worldsoul? A worldsoul that can make titans? Even if it itself isn't inherently a titan, just that it might become a titan? He's definitely going to try to destroy that as well.

If anything Iridikon's plan for revenge doesn't plan far enough ahead; If he beats the titans, Xal is going to do exactly what the titans did to azeroth as well. Is he overestimating his power so much that he thinks he can defeat the Titans and the Void?

[Hitei]

Even then they still made moral life possible, unintentionally. And they clearly don't unilaterally feel that way. At the very least Eonar & Elune care.

They didn't. There was already perfectly fine life in the form of the elementals. They paved "moral life" over and left a bunch of mindless slave robots and then the OLD GODS were the ones who unintentionally made the next generation of "moral life" possible when the Curse of Flesh freed those slave robots and made them actual people who could make choices, i.e. Vrykul, Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Mogu, etc.

Eonar being the standout because her girlfriend is a Life deity doesn't change that the Pantheon is headed by Aman'thul who would sooner see the planet blown up than in anyone else's hands. It just means Eonar and Iridikron are likely to end up on the same side with us against the Titans.

[Jaggler]

Even then they still made moral life possible, unintentionally. And they clearly don't unilaterally feel that way. At the very least Eonar & Elune care.
That's a good point, but how do you think Iridikron is going to feel about the Prime worldsoul? A worldsoul that can make titans? Even if it itself isn't inherently a titan, just that it might become a titan? He's definitely going to try to destroy that as well.

If anything Iridikon's plan for revenge doesn't plan far enough ahead; If he beats the titans, Xal is going to do exactly what the titans did to azeroth as well. Is he overestimating his power so much that he thinks he can defeat the Titans and the Void?

I don't get the vibe that Iridikron is so nihilistic, that he want to destroy the world soul just to prevent her from becoming a titan. That's basically just a redo of Sargeras at that point. If the World Soul herself rises against the Titans after millenia of imprisonment against the beings Iridikron hates with every fiber of his being, he should be her biggest champion.

Even then they still made moral life possible, unintentionally. And they clearly don't unilaterally feel that way. At the very least Eonar & Elune care.

"moral life" is something, that happened in spite of the titans, not because of them. If it went their way, there wouldn't be lifeforms with higher sentience than the animals that they studied in their petri dishes. Every other higher life form was to be robotic or otherwise to be influenced by Order (see the Dragonflights) and as we saw on the Isle of Dorn, to be exterminated if they went against the Titans will.

[whoisqnx]

I think Iridikron is right in trying to take revenge on the Titans, especially Amanthul...but if he wants the planet to be fully primal, that is an issue. I still think that there will be a war within the Pantheon itself and Titans like Eonar will side with us againts Amanthul. Legend of Elun'ahir book is a huge implication for this to happen.

[GeometryWizard]

Weird take to have in the same post where you praise 5.1 and 5.2, two patches that happened in an expansion where most of the continent's Pandaren were hanging out drinking tea and eating while "a totally big war", the largest mantid swarm in history, sha corruption and the re-emergence of the mogu were all happening. The same expansion that had grummles busy brewing coffee and trying to run yak washes 20 feet away from the supposed threat of Yaungol raiders and just down the road from sprites and virmen doing silly annoyances;

First let's stop here and just note I said patch 5.1 and 5.2 and you immediately start complaining about 5.0.

an expansion where most of the continent's Pandaren were hanging out drinking tea and eating while "a totally big war", the largest mantid swarm in history, sha corruption and the re-emergence of the mogu were all happening.

And you see their military activate and react to these threats. The Shado-pan are one of the forces in 5.2 and they are fighting against Garrosh after that. Why are you bringing up the actions of farmers and traders who you already help and see the story of when questing when I am talking about generals and leaders of nations that literally just sent out an army to fight against Xal'atath but are now all seen hanging out in one single tavern that all have the same questline of "I'm so glad to have peace and the fighting is over" when the world is actively at threat from the same villain they just failed to stop in the last expansion. Please try to imagine the Arcantina existing in Legion to understand how ridiculous this comes across

and where Anduin being injured decided to go just hang out in a nice comfy inn and debate philosophy with Wrathion while the war was happening,

See the bolded lol you literally are writing out his legitimate excuse to hang back from the conflict and complaining about it??? Anduin is grievously injured due to actually being involved in the plot and then continues to have relevant screentime despite that. Why did you even bring this up?

Chen spent most of the expansion comparing notes about beer in farmville,

Chen is involved in defending Kun-Lai and the Vale of Eternal Blossoms from the Zandalari in Shadows of the Horde and then appears again in 5.3 helping liberate Durotar from the Kor'kron. This is a very strange example for you to bring up considering that Chen's appearance in 5.3 gives him more post-launch screentime in MoP than Anduin, Thrall, and the whole Alliance-Horde army Dornogal have post-launch in TWW which clocks in at 0 hours 0 minutes and 0 seconds

That's not even mentioning that Taran-Zhu the actual leader of the pandaren military continues to appear across the patches

and the august celestials sat around their temples doing nothing until the threat was at their door and then sat around the timeless isle why the Kor'kron strip mined the most sacred valley on the continent and released Y'shaarj's heart.

Seeing as the August Celestials have already proven weak to the corruption of the Sha which now openly infects the Vale and they're not shown to be particularly strong given that Niuzao needed help against a lieutenant of the still-dead Lei Shen it's not a stretch to believe that they knew their worth was better spent empowering us on the Timeless Isle. That's the key focus they're shown doing something to help instead of just totally vanishing offscreen or explicitly shown chilling out doing nothing and going "Love this peace that we're in"

Like I'm not sure you could possibly pick a worse argument than "this really shows how these side characters don't care at all about the big threat" if your go-to for good action patches is fucking MoP, the expansion that could not go three quest hubs in a row without wild tonal swings and disjointed lack of care by any NPCs for what was happening one town over.

Rather than engage my point about how MoP continues to show its main characters active throughout the expansion you instead went on a tirade about how much you don't like MoP's base questing to the point that you even brought up the short distance between quest content like this isn't something in every single expansion because they can't scale the world to be massive and this is something I didn't even mention because it's a game design issue rather than writing

To get back on topic, look at how involved the factions and the Shado-pan remain across MoP's patches and compare it to TWW. Anduin does not appear after 11.0. Thrall does not appear after 11.0. The Alliance-Horde army does not appear after 11.0. Jaina and Khadgar come back to say goodbye to Dalaran then don't appear after. Siren Isle is effectively the last appearance of any of the Khaz Algar factions and it's for an island with no plot about the crystal that has no relevance to the plot and random vrykul/naga lore. Undermine only relates to a single sidequest area in Ringing Deeps and questline in Azj-kahet and might as well be entirely self-contained since the black blood story went nowhere along with the connection to Harandar. K'aresh is so disconnected from the rest of the plot that Alleria lampshading it is the very first line of the 11.2 story. The only recurring character here is Alleria

Then we get to 12.0. The factions should know that Xal'atath is not defeated even from the events of 11.0 and is still active. Surely Alleria told them that Xal'atath escaped 11.2 stronger than ever or at least she would have told the void elves who surely would have told the factions seeing as they are mobilizing to defend Silvermoon. In fact this should absolutely be the case since a Lightforged draenei in Midnight knows about the entire story of Salhadaar which was only revealed in 11.2 so they had to have been informed of the events in K'aresh. So you think this wouldn't be any kind of surprise for the Alliance and Horde. Even if it was then surely they would notice that several heads of state all vanished along with tons of priests and paladins and this would be a big deal especially the instant they know that Xal'atath is the cause again

Instead the only thing we are shown in 12.0 are faction leaders and high ranking generals and even intelligence officers from all walks of life and cultures all visiting the same tavern and all talking about how they're happy to put the wars of the past behind them and finally just relax and enjoy peace. The leaders and officers of the two world superpowers that just rallied their forces to sail across the world ASAP to stop Xal'atath are now shown explicitly ignoring Xal'atath one expansion later. It's not just that they don't appear at all, it's that they chose to show them doing nothing and acting like nothing is happening when they have zero reason to believe that all is well given the events of TWW

I am talking about characters on the key art advertised as main characters of the expansion not even appearing past the opening of it and the biggest military superpowers in the world shown rallying their forces against Xal'atath one minute and then shown doing nothing but taking it easy and talking about how lovely peace is while Xal'atath is still actively attacking the world and one of their own capital cities the next minute and your response was to go "well I didn't see Gina Mudclaw doing much in MoP!"

The Arcantina would make more sense if the visitors were all Gina Mudclaws who wouldn't have any good reason to be involved with the main plot. Instead they undermined the gravitas of their own narrative by showing that the entire rest of the world is completely ignoring the main plot

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Forest trolls were the original Horde trolls, their entire background hinges on their wars with humanity and Quel'thalas. The human kingdoms were founded off of their destruction, a leading dynasty of theirs is literally called Trollbane. Them being alright with Blood Elves and disavowing Zul'jin because Liadrin was a nanny to his grandkids for a zone after milennia of zero-sum war is already completely wretched, but the idea that they'd now have ample reason to enlist with Stormwind is worse.

It’s only worse for them to join SW (lore wise not anduin wise) if we forget the forsaken exist which have the exact same ties to the Trollbanes as the humans of stormwind and along with the blood elfs are on stolen troll land which was the Amani’s main focus while stormwind is on zero troll land and even the Arthai are on land they hadn’t held since before the Sundering.

There’s zero way to justify them joining the horde that wouldn’t also apply them joining the alliance as both are completely hand waving the Amani’s main grievance so if there going to go one way they might as well go both.

- - - Updated - - -

"moral life" is something, that happened in spite of the titans, not because of them. If it went their way, there wouldn't be lifeforms with higher sentience than the animals that they studied in their petri dishes. Every other higher life form was to be robotic or otherwise to be influenced by Order (see the Dragonflights) and as we saw on the Isle of Dorn, to be exterminated if they went against the Titans will.

We see in the Titan future from the DF event that the titans don’t have any problem with mortal life and they just passively observe and record about them.

The Titans are indifferent to mortal life not hostile to it.

[Cheezits]

IMO, the only way Iridikron becomes sympathetic is if they leverage HARD that the true brains behind the Primalist operation is Magatha (who, in character, could have more diabolical selfish reasons). Otherwise, he directly empowered Xal and caused the murders of countless innocents.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I just doubt a sudden move to add a X.3 fixes anything in The Last Titan. It just feels like for the Warcraft Team the entire Story has become a slippery fish they can't quite grasp anymore.

I suppose if Northrend is just window dressing and memberberries to get people in the door, they probably could just do the Sword in 13.2 and then everyone would clap. But yeah, who knows. I am skeptical since prior to that they would have to showcased effort with IGC/Cinematics/Animated Shorts to portray events of The Last Titan that are expected at a level that feels authentic to the finale state of The Last Titan which I don't think they have it in them anymore.

[Cheezits]

I suppose if Northrend is just window dressing and memberberries to get people in the door, they probably could just do the Sword in 13.2 and then everyone would clap. But yeah, who knows. I am skeptical since prior to that they would have to showcased effort with IGC/Cinematics/Animated Shorts to portray events of The Last Titan that are expected at a level that feels authentic to the finale state of The Last Titan which I don't think they have it in them anymore.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason Midnight's cinematic had a lower budget is because the only characters that could've been there for the story are Xal, Liadrin and Lor (plus other lesser known belves). TLT's cast has the chance to have Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Sylvanas (!) and Illidan (!!) from the get-go, so they just saved their money for a larger gangbuster and distributed some cash elsewhere until then. Or they are working on both and that's why.

For all Midnight's "Legion 2" fanon hype it does not feature a lot of well known characters.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

IMO, the only way Iridikron becomes sympathetic is if they leverage HARD that the true brains behind the Primalist operation is Magatha (who, in character, could have more diabolical selfish reasons). Otherwise, he directly empowered Xal and caused the murders of countless innocents.

Unless Magatha has a Time Machine this just wouldn’t work as we already have the war of the scaleborn novel where he was mass murdering both mortals and dragons with no real motivation 20 thousand years ago.

[Sondrelk]

I really don't see how making Iridikron our ally makes him any interesting at all.
He has tried to kill us before. And clearly only cares about empowering himself, and getting revenge on the Titans.
Honestly, even him caring about Azeroth the Worldsoul feels out of character for him, when I think the far more reasonable read on his character is that he cares about Azeroth the planet he gets to rule as the unquestioned apex dragon.

At best I could see him trying to ally with us on a very flimsy enemy-of-my-enemy type deal. But I think the far more likely outcome in TLT is a three-way war between us, Iridikron, and the Titans. And if we get a team-up, it's us allying with the Titans to defeat Iridikron before they turn on us.

[Lorca]

More Trolls is always good. Give me more Trolls and keep the Helves, Velves and Nelves away for a while. We didn't have enough of the Zandalari, Rastakhan was completely wasted, just as Zul. Where are Zekhan and Talanji? Where is Vol'jin? Instead we have the Windrunners around all the freaking time and now we add also Arator to the bunch, yuhu!

And I also hope we get revamped Zul'drak and Drakkari in TLT!

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason Midnight's cinematic had a lower budget is because the only characters that could've been there for the story are Xal, Liadrin and Lor (plus other lesser known belves). TLT's cast has the chance to have Jaina, Thrall, Anduin, Sylvanas (!) and Illidan (!!) from the get-go, so they just saved their money for a larger gangbuster and distributed some cash elsewhere until then. Or they are working on both and that's why.

For all Midnight's "Legion 2" fanon hype it does not feature a lot of well known characters.

Depends on whether Voidstorm was done for that purpose to get out of Midnight and into Live Service quickly to save budget for The Last Titan or if it actually was just done the way it was solely because they realized how expensive actually dealing with Midnights concept would have been if they had actually put in effort. If its' the latter then it doesn't bode well for The Last Titan.

[Nymrohd]

To be fair, I agree that Troll content seems entirely formulaic by now. It is the same matrix of new clans and their respective loa. They get their color, animal and a temple and they are ready to go. But I will say, troll patches have yet to deliver a solid set of HD transmog at the level we have been getting lately for the main patch campaign so at least we will finally get that out of the way.

As for Neutral Amani being so much worse than Horde Amani, I have to agree with @Lorgar Aurelian. Amani being in the same faction as the blood elves is way worse and the Trollbane angle is moot because there are Forsaken Trollbanes as well; any Seven Kingdoms reference is more Horde than Alliance given Forsaken fans never forget to impress upon us how Lordaeron is theirs, well then the lore and themes from the pre-Scourge area is yours as well. I think the Revantusk worked as a smaller clan that needed the Horde and could have had a parallel arc to the Darkspear (single clan becomes more powerful than the main tribe by associating with the Horde and growing through it) but the proper Amani being part of the Horde is peak kymbaya storytelling.

[Ersula]

I really don't see how making Iridikron our ally makes him any interesting at all.
He has tried to kill us before. And clearly only cares about empowering himself, and getting revenge on the Titans.
Honestly, even him caring about Azeroth the Worldsoul feels out of character for him, when I think the far more reasonable read on his character is that he cares about Azeroth the planet he gets to rule as the unquestioned apex dragon.

At best I could see him trying to ally with us on a very flimsy enemy-of-my-enemy type deal. But I think the far more likely outcome in TLT is a three-way war between us, Iridikron, and the Titans. And if we get a team-up, it's us allying with the Titans to defeat Iridikron before they turn on us.

I will say Iridikron could go either way. I still think Xal is going to claim the Worldsoul at the end of this expansion & become a kind of dark titan. Taking control of the worldsoul at the beginning of TLT & fully emerging in a god-like form by the end of the saga. So Iridikron's most likely part of the story is:

1.) He's just a minor boss. His lair is a single-boss raid & gets disposed of early in 13.0

2.) He recognizes Xal just wants to become a Titan herself & the Titans aren't coming because they have to keep Sargeras in check: That takes priority. So we join forces.

3.) He never realizes that his plan might be bad & he plays a greater role in Xal's plan. Becoming one of her strongest minions, until one betrays the other dramatically at the end of 13.2 or something. Maybe they fuse together to be some sort of void earth lord.