Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Joshuaj]

I still just don't understand what the first ones add, it's just pointless complications to the narrative scratching out "titans" replacing it with "order" not to mention how "first ones = titans" is actually being tied together with other existing lore like the dream stuff


It'd also be confusing as all fuck to talk about "order" the character (first one who planned the shadowlands) "order" the cosmic force (embodied by the first one) and "order" the general concept


And I know you like to go back and forth between "the first ones are just names for fractals!!" And "order ordered the shadowlands"


And I'm saying this as someone who thinks having had the first ones had been more tied to gnosticism and being an actual stand in for the people making the game would have been really compelling narratively with Sylvanas, a character who has suffered deep and personal trauma constantly in her life, and her finding out all this happened because of the unknowable whims of the people who created reality, with us understanding that while "the first ones" may seem all powerful they too are bound by forces beyond their control (whims of the players/shareholders/whoever)


But just having them be nebulous primordial forces seems to be (in true blizzard fashion) splitting the difference and just make nothing feel good

I mean, there ain't much to confuse regarding the split stuff of order.

Order is the name of the force, Order's influence is embodied and structured through the Titans, and the general concept of order is something that originated through Order's unknowable existence.

Heck, Saezurah herself kinda talked about the forces as if they were beings, primarily VIA how the influences were named.

Mortis = Of Death
Lumen= Of Light
Ordus= Of Order

Vitae= Of Life
Umbra= Of Shadow
Tumult= Of Disorder

So the forces that exist within the cosmos are of the primordial 6 (or 7) powers.

Ik you talked about my mindset on this stuff, so I'll shut up lol

[Vakir]

Shadowlands.

[screams externally]

[Joshuaj]

Also, you'd rather the First Ones be representatives of the actual OG Blizzard devs? I mean, on paper that'd be cool, but I do think that'd be a lil too meta imo. Heck, not even Diablo did that with its supreme being.

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"not to mention how "first ones = titans" is actually being tied together with other existing lore like the dream stuff"

What do you mean by this? @Limayria

[Limayria]

Also, you'd rather the First Ones be representatives of the actual OG Blizzard devs? I mean, on paper that'd be cool, but I do think that'd be a lil too meta imo. Heck, not even Diablo did that with its supreme being.

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"not to mention how "first ones = titans" is actually being tied together with other existing lore like the dream stuff"

What do you mean by this? @Limayria

The dream. Is connected to the shadowlands we saw.

The dream we saw was "ordered" by the titans, after we saw that the dream was a small chunk of a larger place "ordered" by titans, we then had a character look at the camera and go "wow the shadowlands sure is more ordered than you'd expect huh" like blizzard understands their audience is mostly people who can't or won't read quest text, much less be thinking about the deeper lore implications of things as much as we may wish theyd focus more on the lore heads. So They don't make things hard to piece together and it seems very clear they want us to associate Sylvanas's description of the shadowlands and the description of the emerald dream from 10.2, they even tied shadowlands lore directly into both 10.2 and 11.2 to help you not forget about it


I don't even think the OG blizzard devs, just in general I think it's be interesting to see the first ones presented as deeply loving all of creation in a way so esoteric it feels absent to those entities in that creation. Like imagine confronting God about the horrific suffering you had to endure your entire life, including having your soul violated and abused leaving you split in two, and having to recognize that half of you did unimaginably horrific things to people; for some one like Sylvanas and then her asking "why would you create a world in which that happens" and the only answer they can give you is "this is the only way you can exist" and having the jailor having been a mortal soul who became arbitor and became disillusioned seeing all the suffering every thing must face and decides non existence is preferable


Which would be much more fitting of a "death" aligned villain to me than "a universe divided can not stand against wants to come"


Like yeah the first ones would be a stand in for the developers, but they'd be beings existing in a scale and setting that'd be beyond our comprehension (as characters) at all, to the point that even their communication is an "ancient premade message" that plays for Sylvanas answering her questions and accusations before she can voice them


Idk maybe I need to refocus how to explain the idea more clearly but I love the idea of gods who's pov is so different from ours their idea of love is hellish torture but those gods are faced with the fact that in order for those characters to be interesting and complex enough to be relatable and interesting enough to support the long standing narrative that underwrites their universe they must suffer. And also having had the enlightened draw some inspiration from Ursula la guin's the disposed with their ultimate apotheosis originating form understanding the structure of the universe is narrative rather than some sort of coherent liner understanding of reality I guess


But also like idk if this is even something that could be explored in an MMO, I just feel in general that conceptually there was interesting things to do with the first ones but with what we were served in shadowlands and ZM the best call is reworking it into "titans did it"


Id also like to reiterate I don't have a problem with u or think you're dumb for liking this, it's just a thing that I feel was a bridge too far for happening mid law suit and mid covid as well as at the time FF14 was peaking and then trying to write a follow up as the company was bought out by Microsoft and the narrative lead changed so I doubt we'll ever end up with a more satisfying follow up than the titan connection especially if it helps us kinda, tie everything back together post TLT

[Joshuaj]

The Emerald Dream is Azeroth's dream reflection that's linked to the Domain of Life, which isn't fully structured by nature. The Titans structured Azeroth's dream reflection though, likely to further their hold on the worldsoul, especially by binding and using the other influences against it.

The Shadowlands is a cosmic domain, with its functionalities spanning the Dark Beyond in its entirety. It's the domain of Death, and Death's influence is one of the structured influences, so therefore the Shadowlands is structured by nature. However, we don't know why it's structured the way it is.

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I understand what you're saying with everything else though. That would've been a neat way to go about the First Ones, yeah.

[Joszef Kiprich]

Is the next remix Shadowlands? Because there is a lot SL speculation in here and almost zero to none Midnight and TLT.

[Limayria]

The Emerald Dream is Azeroth's dream reflection that's linked to the Domain of Life, which isn't fully structured by nature. The Titans structured Azeroth's dream reflection though, likely to further their hold on the worldsoul, especially by binding and using the other influences against it.

The Shadowlands is a cosmic domain, with its functionalities spanning the Dark Beyond in its entirety. It's the domain of Death, and Death's influence is one of the structured influences, so therefore the Shadowlands is structured by nature. However, we don't know why it's structured the way it is.

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I understand what you're saying with everything else though. That would've been a neat way to go about the First Ones, yeah.

yeah, I think a part of the reveal is what we consider the "Shadowlands" are actual an equivalent demi realm to the emerald dream which is linked to the true realm of death like how the dream is linked the more wild untamed spaces beyond.

I'm personally betting that one of the reveals of TLT is gonna feature anima being used by the titans to power the manifold to keep azeorth contained, and the anime stuff in ToT was them experimenting with it to figure out how to get a relatively self sustaining form of energy that wouldnt be disrupted if fail safes (like re orginiation) had to be triggered, so looping in as much as the rest of the universes realms of life and death into a cycle of rebirth in which they use their facilities in the shadowlands to extract small amounts of anima from this natural cycle would be pretty neat and tie a lot of random shit together in a way that feels (IMO) earned

Is the next remix Shadowlands? Because there is a lot SL speculation in here and almost zero to none Midnight and TLT.

we were talking about potential drust influence as well as speculation on elemental planes of spirit which haranir might be, and the "first ones = titans" is VERY relevant to TLT, arguably the most releveant thing we could be discussing in regards to the titan conspiracy which would be pretty far reaching if it impacted azeorth the dream and the shadowlands, and play into us "unraveling" the conspiracy in TLT when they've already set up the big "twist" of the titans stealing


we could also have a random drust pivot helping drive home the "natural vs ordered" death dichotomy

[Joshuaj]

I disagree, but I'll keep your theory in mind. I gotta have an open mindset about this stuff, ya know?

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I gotta say, if you're right on this, I feel like I would've wasted 7 or so years of my life on this stuff LMAO

[SaintBigfoot]

Do you mean the Dragonhawk? Some can breathe fire like Dragons. I think that's the only way its elemental.

Oe is a lesser Loa that is mentioned after the main quest, which I believe is a Plant Elemental, sort of like a Green Man.

[Enrif]

Oh look at that, a nugget of Spirit lore.

Hopefully Ö appears at some point.

heh, calling it Ö is kinda funny. But thinking about it. All the zones of Midnight have a theme of nature. Harandar is obvious, but Zul'aman is just a giant forest and we interact with animals (loa), Eversong we help in sidequests the spirits of nature return, and Voidstorm has the whole prey and predator spiel that is core "surivial of the fittest" mindset. I'm so ready to join team "Elemental Spirit" for this expansion.

[KainneAbsolute]

I think the Maw is the ruins of the previous version of the Shadowlands or Zovaals attempt to create a new Shadowlands realm

[Joshuaj]

I think the Maw is the ruins of the previous version of the Shadowlands or Zovaals attempt to create a new Shadowlands realm

I'm pretty sure Oribos was built atop another realm originally, and said realm became the Maw.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

Spoiler: 

I really wish this was a Shadowform alternative, with or without the graft (though, i like it a lot).
It's actually wild to me that in a VvL expansion there wouldn't be visual overhauls done to the spec.

Or Priests in general, the class is visually still stuck in cataclysm for the most part.
Spirit of Redemption is still rocking that old Spirit Healer model, Guardian Spirit and Holy Fire are still using VFX from before christ.
Glyph of Angels is also so damn old.

Shadowfiend, Mindbender, Dispersion, Pain Suppression, Desperate Prayer, Divine Aegis, Fade.
All created when the Dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

I totally agree! We should be able to glyph this!

[Alanar]

I totally agree! We should be able to glyph this!

Or any of the previous Shadowforms. Its been requested to have those options for years. Now add this one to the list.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Speaking of Drust, is there anything to extrapolate from various Prey targets?

Every single Prey target is represented in Midnight in some form, except for the Thornspeakers, Death Knights and Tinkers, funny enough. Vindicators could maybe be argued, but I'd lump them in with the Vanguard of Light.

The Death Knights we can link to the Light's Hope quest during Arator's campaign, a potential hint at a Plaguelands patch. The Tinkers feel like a pretty on the nose hint IMO.

The Thornspeakers though are an interesting one, especially because I'd be reluctant to link them directly with the currently unknown spooky game mode. I know the Plaguelands are healed, but I wonder how deep we'd dive into the various players in death magic if we were to have a Lordaeron revamp?

Death Knights don't have anything to do with Midnight specifically, but are just a generally interesting threat that could be slotted in here. The lore is that all Death Knights must be members of the Ebon Blade, or else they are declared rogue Death Knights and will be hunted down. Except the game hardly ever depicted these dangerous rogue death knights. So it's neat that we finally get to see a couple, though here it's not Knights of the Ebon Blade doing their duty and hunting them down but a creepy wizard from some country.

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Like, it's hard to call this a "robot" when there's nothing really technological about it. Maybe I'm overthinking it? But it's just proto-metals and magic.

It has a head that looks like a webcam, and the limbs look like industrial robot arms.

[Scyth]

Is the next remix Shadowlands? Because there is a lot SL speculation in here and almost zero to none Midnight and TLT.

Unlikely but some like to bring up SL and the First Ones every few weeks.

[Sondrelk]

I'm pretty sure Oribos was built atop another realm originally, and said realm became the Maw.

Wasn't it explained that only the Sanctum of Domination originally existed in the Maw, and that the landmasses we see are from the Jailer using the chains to physically drag pieces of the Shadowlands to him?
The reason it all looks the same is because it gets destroyed by proximity to the souls of the damned.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Shadowlands has a LOT of cosmetics. It probably has the most amount of cosmetics that people do not have yet given how many of them are locked behind arduous anima or rep grinds. That's a lot of stuff that Blizzard could dangle as being easily acquired via Remix vendors for bronze.

The only major caveat is that the Shadowlands continent instance does not mesh well with the now popular dragonriding gameplay, as you have to first dismount and then talk to an NPC to get on a flightpath to go through hyperspace from each zone through Oribos. An easy fix would be to allow players on their dragonriding mount to fly into a stargate and automatically enter the hyperspace flightpath on their current mount. A neat bonus would be if two additional stargates were placed in each zone that allowed you to fly through one directly from Bastion to Arden Weald, so no need to go to Oribos first. (Alternatively, they could give you a crystal that allows you to remotely dial the one stargate per zone as you approach it and change which zone you will pop out of at the end). Or to allow flying in the Oribos zone, so people on their dragonriding mounts can come out of the stargate from Bastion and then fly directly into another stargate to another zone.

[Limayria]

Shadowlands has a LOT of cosmetics. It probably has the most amount of cosmetics that people do not have yet given how many of them are locked behind arduous anima or rep grinds. That's a lot of stuff that Blizzard could dangle as being easily acquired via Remix vendors for bronze.

The only major caveat is that the Shadowlands continent instance does not mesh well with the now popular dragonriding gameplay, as you have to first dismount and then talk to an NPC to get on a flightpath to go through hyperspace from each zone through Oribos. An easy fix would be to allow players on their dragonriding mount to fly into a stargate and automatically enter the hyperspace flightpath on their current mount. A neat bonus would be if two additional stargates were placed in each zone that allowed you to fly through one directly from Bastion to Arden Weald, so no need to go to Oribos first. (Alternatively, they could give you a crystal that allows you to remotely dial the one stargate per zone as you approach it and change which zone you will pop out of at the end). Or to allow flying in the Oribos zone, so people on their dragonriding mounts can come out of the stargate from Bastion and then fly directly into another stargate to another zone.

I could see them adding the new remix zone as a place that can spit you out to any SL zone, or adding portals to all the zones in the covenant sanctums if they do that

[Xeladriel]

Shadowlands Remix Will be an error if exists

2/3 remixes has been the most beloved xpac, and SL is not one of them, Woltk yes