Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[DenPhoenix]

Playing through Arator's questchain feels bad just because the whole scenario makes so much more sense for Anduin to learn what are the paladins and how he can become one now thta the lights answers his calls again.

I don't enjoy Anduin's character but his presence in TWW was used correctly. Getting him on the sidelines now that he can wield the light feels very wrong. Add to that the fact the hand that we see in the opening cinematic is his.


I don't get why they've just butchered his arc.

I’m afraid they cut Anduin’s story arc when they rewrote Worldsoul Saga, and honestly that’s very sad. It really felt like Anduin was meant to oppose Xal’atath, while Thrall vs Iridikron.

I really hope after the Sunwell storyline is resolved, Anduin and Velen — as the main Light-leaders — will actually get a proper role in Midnight, instead of just standing AFK. Because it would be a real disrespect to the stories of these two characters, who were built and write for this final battle against the Shadow.

[Reive]

If the goal is having a more digestible and understandable narrative, the answer is a longer and more fleshed out campaign, rather than cramming everything into a few hours of quests with dumbed-down writing. This approach only alienates the audience and kills interest in the setting.

Ironically, currently the best way to experience the story is by reading someone's summary. There are many cool and interesting story bits hidden behind lame dialogue and cheap cutscenes. blizzard forgot the rule of cool

[Sondrelk]

If the goal is having a more digestible and understandable narrative, the answer is a longer and more fleshed out campaign, rather than cramming everything into a few hours of quests with dumbed-down writing. This approach only alienates the audience and kills interest in the setting.

Ironically, currently the best way to experience the story is by reading someone's summary. There are many cool and interesting story bits hidden behind lame dialogue and cheap cutscenes. blizzard forgot the rule of cool

They tried that in Legion, and the player base crucified the devs for daring to not just have timegated questlines, but timegated raids.

[Reive]

They tried that in Legion, and the player base crucified the devs for daring to not just have timegated questlines, but timegated raids.

you don't need to timegate quests, just make MORE of them. timegating quests only makes the disconnect with the story worse because by the time you get a new bunch of them you've probably already forgotten what's going on

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

If the goal is having a more digestible and understandable narrative, the answer is a longer and more fleshed out campaign, rather than cramming everything into a few hours of quests with dumbed-down writing. This approach only alienates the audience and kills interest in the setting.

Ironically, currently the best way to experience the story is by reading someone's summary. There are many cool and interesting story bits hidden behind lame dialogue and cheap cutscenes. blizzard forgot the rule of cool

Sure, but the point is Story is just a marketing tool. They don't need to put in an effort because the main selling point is the concept of the expansion in our heads not the actual expansion set they will be selling.

The Saga as a marketing tool is because it compacts 3 expansions into 1, it devalues each individual expansion so that by the time you're upset over how poorly they handled the first expansion, you're blam yam stuck in the middle of the second one and are on your way to the third in which prior to that they will announce a new Saga for your imagination to run wild and forget the conclusion of the previous saga. Its' also just such a good tool for this because WoW has always been stuck at the "Next will be good" and now you can always cling to the "final expansion of the Saga will be incredible" which helps your continuous decisionmaking going forward to always make sure there's no gap for people to start asking questions.

Again, things could change if we had a more serious critique space and feedback was much more pronounced across the board but as always a lot of people believe this whole thing operates in good faith and because the game is good which creates very few if any sort of criticism before we reach a inflection point where everyone starts crying.

[DenPhoenix]

I think having Anduin, a king, doubt the regents (Turalyon and Lor'themar) would have been a bit more welcomed and understandable. We know his past and deeds and his reticence when it comes to all out war. Jumping back into this thread when he barely got out of his trauma would have added some grounded narrative that Arator is unable to deliver.

Everything gains potential once you replace Arator by Anduin, genealogy drama versus political, philosophical, and psychological drama. Path of least resistance issue I guess.

I agree that Anduin would probably feel more natural for us in that role, but that’s mostly because we’re used to seeing him in it.

But I actually liked Arator as well, and as the direct son of the leader of the Army of the Light and the bearer of a Dark Naaru — both of whom play major roles in the story — he deserves his moment to shine.


Overall, when I was doing Arator’s quest, I kept feeling that I would’ve liked to see Turalyon himself be part of that journey — so Arator could understand his father more from Turalyon’s own perspective.

On the one hand, it’s great that Alonsus, Danath, and Falstad wanted to help him. But honestly, I wish the game had shown more interaction and mutual understanding between father and son, like that really good cutscene with the shield.

[Hearthfinder]

Well, no blog post about 12.0.5 tonight it seems. But MrGM noticed that a catalogue entry for Midnight's PTR is now 12.0.5, so today or tomorrow still seems likely.
@Marlamin care to chirp in?

[Limayria]

You're completely right, and I'll be clear that I admit that this is probably a case of me wanting my cake and eating it too. The Midnight campaign is the best it's been in a very long time. The side quests are incredible, especially Voidstorm's (the constant show of grief and loss during calamity is incredibly well done, the Void Elves have rightfully opicked up the baton from TBC's Blood Elves, but that's for another time).

And the problem isn't just directed at Midnight/WoW. It carries over to television and other media as well. Netflix movies are required to restate the plot several times for the viewer, assuming they're on their phone. Anyone out there who's an RCS fan like myself, especially of Big Brother, will see the same thing, where 75% of cast confessionals are just restating the rules, process, and general idea of what's happening because viewers are splitting focus with the show and their scrolling.

That little rant aside, maybe it's just the dialouge? That's been the weakest part for a long time, the emphasis on "main characters" pushes it further. I wonder what a WoW MSQ could look like if we weren't Alleria's closest ally, or a champion directly reporting to a faction leader.

yeah, I think the dialogue is also hurt by the generally lower quality of voice acting over all; IT almost feels like they lost the old voice director or maybe its just a result of some time pressure interfering with additional takes or something. I also felt some of the voice casting was strange. Scott Menville as a generic blood elf voice was.... Bad LOL and I like him as a voice actor in somethings but ugh "treat my wares with care(s)"


I totally agree too about the void elves carrying on the culture of the TBC blood elves and I've actually come around to the idea of the void/blood elf being explored more as a political schism kick started by the exiling of the velfs. I've always thought that it was weird that the entire Blood elf society just welcomes the light back after the light abandoned them and that would be very fertile ground to have a modern day political schism between the "progressive" elves who want their culture to advance and change and the people who want to return to things before the trauma and try to rebuild the society that once was. Which would also be a good way to link all the elves together, having high elves and the average blood elf realizing they both dream of returning quelthalas to the glory it once held, with the ex sunfury/illidari/void elves thinking they cant forget everything they learned and that they need to change so nothing like the scourging can ever happen again. And keep playing into different takes on the theme of grief.

But I also think that we should have had either a warlock or an Illidari faction instead of murder row for Serithels party thing, which btw not to be a midnight glazer but all the events this go around have been really fun! I love abudance, i like the mini game of the party reps, and the tower defense mode is actually fun when you arent stuck in a zone with 60 afk players making it impossible, or 60 active players zerging everything in a lag fest

[Reive]

Sure, but the point is Story is just a marketing tool. They don't need to put in an effort because the main selling point is the concept of the expansion in our heads not the actual expansion set they will be selling.

The Saga as a marketing tool is because it compacts 3 expansions into 1, it devalues each individual expansion so that by the time you're upset over how poorly they handled the first expansion, you're blam yam stuck in the middle of the second one and are on your way to the third in which prior to that they will announce a new Saga for your imagination to run wild and forget the conclusion of the previous saga. Its' also just such a good tool for this because WoW has always been stuck at the "Next will be good" and now you can always cling to the final expansion of the Saga will be incredible dynamic which helps your continuous decisionmaking going forward.

this can only work in the short term tho.

when you bring back the setting's creator and promise a grandiose, story-focused saga, you set the narrative bar high. people might tolerate a mediocre start (TWW), but you have to deliver with the following chapters, otherwise you lose quickly all the goodwill gained with dragonflight and the blizzcon.

people get tired of empty promises. once the playerbase realizes the product is all marketing and no substance, they start to resent it. some might stick around just to see how things end and others might just be too addicted to quit, but many will simply move on in silence.

i don't want to be the usual doomer, but you can already see this happening with midnight. imo things seem far too quiet for the start of a new expansion. i have the feeling that the disappointing announcement and the poor marketing have done a lot of damage to this expansion.

Again, things could change if we had a more serious critique space and feedback was much more pronounced across the board but as always a lot of people believe this whole thing operates in good faith and because the game is good which creates very few if any sort of criticism before we reach a inflection point where everyone starts crying.

that's the result of years heavy moderation and people white-knighting the game. things start to rot, but most won't notice till it's too late because blizzard only reacts when the engagement metrics start to tank

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

To be fair, I am looking forward to the Base Ending and conclusions. I think its' going to be good just a shame with the Troll thing and how ultimately needlessly pointless it is in the context of the expansion set and what really matters is conveying the epic scale and interesting events taking place at the core that should be focused and told properly so that we have a Saga. But alas. (I'm still holding out that its a "troll" by Warcraft Team cause I definitely am not opposed to have egg on my face for this.)

Again, I just feel like they threw everything in the trash for seemingly no reason and then its' like with the core reason we're in this mess being because we complained they didn't take this seriously we end up punished for them making the Saga? It's just quite disappointing from their side and especially when they also barricade themselves and let not a soul speak about the Story beyond letting Maria Hamilton be the person taking the blame for everything.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My hottest take is that maybe we shouldn't have any in-game cutscenes. Those always feel like the worst part. They're just not good, period.

The in engine cutscenes are good. When Blizzard gives a hoot.








As bad as the writing has been, at least the audiovisual presentation has been stepped up a bit. I now sometimes get closeups of characters' faces (mainly Alleria), which helps make them more distinct and memorable (rather than the typical WoW experience your camera being zoomed out far away from little NPCs in the world. Or a tiny portrait dialogue box on your screen with the character's mouth flapping around wildly). The facial expressions are actually readable and help convey emotion.

The problem is that 1. this is not the baseline cutscene quality. And 2. it is very odd to have a lot of in-engine cutscenes if they are not going to focus on the customizeable main character. That's the entire point of switching from pre-rendered to in-engine. FF14 got it right by having YOU - the character you customized - be the star of the show for 500+ hours, not making you be an extra standing in the back watching this other NPC who you are not playing as be the protagonist of the Worldsoul saga cutscenes.

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They are bad because these days they are almost always about people talking about their feelings instead of action. They used to be action sequences that ended with a cliffhanger and/or an oneliner

Do "stay a while and listen for the former" keep the cut scenes for action only.

They've been bad since the Aspects were blessing Aggra for getting knocked up and they were still good when Alex and Razageth were going at it in the sky.

I thought that the K'aresh cutscenes were great. There was tension without there needing to be fighting onscreen. And they weren't pointless dialogue scenes either, the plot actually unfolded and pushed forward in them.

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I think removing IGCs will just make our problems even worse at this point, there's very little if anything direction wise thats' going well anymore. Removing IGCs essentially just forces the directionless issue even more to the point that it will be even more crippling than it already is. With IGCs, Cinematics we at least can randomly create a hype or interesting moment that may shift discourse or do something that creates dynamism. Its' just not a good idea to remove it right now.

Again, the entire Story situation needs a overhaul for the better or needs to essentially be kicked back to the background and starved for resources while the focus is on the Game itself.

Main problem with WoW's writing is that there is - and never has been - an unimpeachable dictator/writer in charge of WoW who takes the credit and the blame for everything, and definitively owns the product and everything that happens in it. WoW does not have a Sakaguuchi, a Kojima, a Yoko Taro, a Kondo, a Yoshida, a Miyazaki, etc, who is in control and is implementing his vision. Metzen was never that guy, not when he was expressing frustration at writing the Forsaken for WC3 and that the WoW dev team didn't "get" what he was setting up. Or when the devs shoved in Belves into the Horde for the Asian market, Or when Metzen didn't want playable Death Knights and was overruled. Or when the Mongrel Horde almost happened and WoD only happened because someone thought that powermetal orcs were cooler rather than for any overarching planned artistic story. WoW is designed by a literal committee of people tugging and pulling, each on their own page with their own vision, from the higher ups down to the quest designers. And it is a revolving door committee too. The ideas that earlier people set up are never followed up on in the way that was originally envisioned as the guy either gets promoted or leaves the company and new people fill his shoes.

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Since blizzard isn't willing to hire good writers and to change the format of how the story is delivered in game, they should delete 90% of the cutscenes and go back to self contained expansions without any main campaign

For the videogame industry "just hire good writers" is not quite that simple.

I recommend to people that they read Shiwasu Tooru and Ken Shimomura (director of the Japan Game Scenario Writers Association)'s series of indepth articles about writers and their history in the videogames industry.

https://archive.fo/5e1nU
https://archive.fo/IDNXu
https://archive.fo/it4Ae
https://archive.fo/oJ2Eo
https://archive.fo/tYbMO
https://archive.fo/jeQBw
https://archive.fo/JUP1z

The TL;DR is that the nature of the medium and thus the development of the product makes it tremendously difficult to acquire good writers (who are qualified to write for videogames) and for their work to survive all of the developmental shifts or unforeseen obstacles.

Outside of a small handful of cases, it usually does not make business sense to hire a full time writer. The story has to be written at the beginning of development so that the other departments know what levels need to be modelled, what the systems are going to be, etc. For most games, the writing can be done in a short amount of time. So if you only hire a writer to write fulltime, then he finishes his work in the first few months of development and then does nothing. But contracting good writers does not work either, because there are regular changes during development which require more writing to be done, and it is logistically too much of a hassle to keep having to go back to the writer you contracted and work out how you are going to pay him this time, etc.

Lastly, videogame companies have taken losses due to hiring a "professional writer" like a novelist or movie script writer, only for that person to produce something that is completely illsuited for a videogame medium and development. The writer really needs to not only play videogames, but also understand the tools and limitations and resources of the company producing the game.

Therefore, the solution is to appoint a dev team member to do the writing. They already know the gaming medium, know what the dev team and the engine and the tools are capable of, etc. And when they finish writing, they can go work on other things, and there is no hassle when you need to tell them that something has changed, go write new stuff.

It is only very recently with the advent of the live service visual novel, aka gacha games like Granblue Fantasy, Fate/Grand Order, Final Fantasy 14, etc, that is has become practicable to hire full time writers who only write and do nothing else. When you are pushing out a novel's length on a schedule of every 2 to 6 weeks, you now need people who only write fulltime. And often, multiple writers due to the sheer amount of text and output. Fortunately for Japanese games, the domestic box purchase visual novel and literature industries have died due to declining birthrates, leading to there being a lot of now unemployed actually skilled writers who have been vetted by writing competitions and novel awards and are now willing to try their hand at videogame writing. Hence why Japanese gachas and FF14 have become acclaimed for their writing.

This is not the case for other countries. China is now producing big budget gacha games that push out a novel's worth of story every 6 weeks, but the novel industry is still alive so there is not a lot of talent floating around willing to become glued to a videogame indefinitely. So you get writers like Shaoji who are amateurs, have not been vetted by award competitions and the editors of publishers, etc. And the West does not produce any games that pump out anywhere near a comparable amount of text in a regular basis. WoW, GW2, and TES only release new major content patches once every 5 months, and it contains a 15 minute to 1 hour long questline rather than something that might take an entire weekend if not longer.

Normies do not care about the quality of writing, though. As in the plot construction, motivations, pacing, etc. They only care if a movie has a sufficient amount of feel good moments. So slop like The Force Awakens or Zootopia 2 become lauded despite having writing that would get an F on a grade. Hollywood movies have sucked for almost thirty years (because the scriptwriters are paid minimum wage in the high cost of living Los Angeles area, and then what they produce is thrown into the woodchipper of several rewrites before it hit the big screen, having been diluted of everything that was unique about it) and it wasn't enough to cause the movie industry to change. Movie scripts written by AI won't change anything because we already at rock bottom.

Good writers haven't been writing movie scripts for a long time, and if they are still writing commercially then it's by selfpublishing their books on Amazon. But now the Amazon indiepub industry has been collapsing for a few years now, so maybe we'll see some now unemployed writers try their hand at games.

[Marlamin]

Well, no blog post about 12.0.5 tonight it seems. But MrGM noticed that a catalogue entry for Midnight's PTR is now 12.0.5, so today or tomorrow still seems likely.
@Marlamin care to chirp in?

Yeah, hope it hits before next week as I have a busy week ahead of me, but we'll see.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Like idk how so many of you can sit here shitting the writing

Let's see...

The denigration of Turalyon, fatherhood, defending your people, and worship of the Light.

The deuteragonist Arator jumping to absurd conclusions and bending over backwards for a gangster savage he just watched torture and knife a human and is leading an invasion of his homeland

Whitewashing of the savage cannibalistic Amani into dindus and everything being pinned onto two guys.

Zul'aman story in which Zul'jarra is constantly praised as the second coming for just existing.

Harandar story where the heroine Orenwya is incredibly dull and feels bad about protecting her own people.

The discovery of the location and the disappearance of the Worldsoul herself is treated as an aside and does not send shockwaves throughout the world.

The abortion that is the Arator's Journey arc and the total mockery of the Light there.

The strawmanning and villainbatting of Lothraxion

Arator being a momma's boy at the end for a deadbeat mom while shitting on his dad who was always right there over the past four or five years or however many it was since Argus.

Plotlines established earlier in the Worldsoul Saga such as the Radiant Song, Beledar, Elun'hair, Renilash, the Black Blood, etc, have been forgotten.



No, the writing is abysmal. But that's been par for the course for WoW ever since WoD. But the actual moment to moment questing is tighter and more engaging than some prior expansions like BFA or Dragonflight, and the audiovisual presentation has been stepped up a bit with more cutscenes.

[Joshuaj]

I will say, I do wish the Light was treated better this expac. We haven't even seen A'dal or other good Naaru yet.

[milkmustache]

I will say, I do wish the Light was treated better this expac. We haven't even seen A'dal or other good Naaru yet.

The lack of Naaru is my biggest flag for a much larger Light presence at some point. It is insane we haven't seen one outside of a 2 quest appearance and the one inside Alleria.

[Limayria]

Let's see...

The denigration of Turalyon, fatherhood, defending your people, and worship of the Light.

The deuteragonist Arator jumping to absurd conclusions and bending over backwards for a gangster savage he just watched torture and knife a human and is leading an invasion of his homeland

Whitewashing of the savage cannibalistic Amani into dindus and everything being pinned onto two guys.

Zul'aman story in which Zul'jarra is constantly praised as the second coming for just existing.

Harandar story where the heroine Orenwya is incredibly dull and feels bad about protecting her own people.

The discovery of the location and the disappearance of the Worldsoul herself is treated as an aside and does not send shockwaves throughout the world.

The abortion that is the Arator's Journey arc and the total mockery of the Light there.

The strawmanning and villainbatting of Lothraxion

Arator being a momma's boy at the end for a deadbeat mom while shitting on his dad who was always right there over the past four or five years or however many it was since Argus.

Plotlines established earlier in the Worldsoul Saga such as the Radiant Song, Beledar, Elun'hair, Renilash, the Black Blood, etc, have been forgotten.



No, the writing is abysmal. But that's been par for the course for WoW ever since WoD. But the actual moment to moment questing is tighter and more engaging than some prior expansions like BFA or Dragonflight, and the audiovisual presentation has been stepped up a bit with more cutscenes.

Bitching that things were forgotten when we haven't even started playing the max level launch content is legitimaty deranged but that's not surprising for someone using terms like "dindu"


Nor is it surprising you'd call Alleria a deadbeat when the writers have gone out of their way specifically to show that turyalon has no idea how to be a father to his son because he was essentially raised by the light. That scene in the arator short was showing Alleria cared about Arator in the ways arator needs to be cared about

And turyalon is literally criticized by the narrative for not protecting people and instead giving into the lights wrath... Like Arator's whole journey is about helping him reconnect with the non violent side of the light, and Liadrin's story in Zulaman is showing her as a person with a complex and holistic understanding of the light compared to the people who's expierence was "fighting the forever war for 1000 years in space"


Maybe it just makes a little sense that the man who never had a real family dynamic and spent 10 time his natural life span fighting the infinite space war might be a bad dad

[Cheezits]

The Naaru got kneecapped by this both being an Old Azeroth expansion (so no DF magic OC island) and also an expansion for New Players. They didn't include them because they are too hard to explain to new players. I have a feeling that L'ura coming out of Alleria is supposed to be a big oh shit moment for the uninformed, while older players are left wondering why she didn't do that before.

That or they will heavily be a part of the potential Light patch as Saara and A'dal are still MIA despite the fact they should've been with Velen and Calia respectively.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I'm skeptical that it isn't just

12.1 - Troll (Finishing Zul'aman Zone Storyline)
12.2 - Clash of Light and Shadow at the Worldcore leading to the attempted or completed claiming of the World Soul by Xal'atath.

Now obviously, they could surprise us and expand the product due to 12.1 being set for September prior to Blizzcon and so they could push a expansion to the product in which they add a 3rd Major Patch and if so then sure I can see a dedicated Light Patch or some form of Lordaeron Patch. But until that happens and that is big but considering it seems the Warcraft Team is thinking maximalist and not in the present but rather far far away from the present concerns.

[Cheezits]

12.1 - Troll (Finishing Zul'aman Zone Storyline)
12.2 - Clash of Light and Shadow at the Worldcore leading to the attempted or completed claiming of the World Soul by Xal'atath.

That is what is set up, but the Light is set in such an absolute SHIT state by the end of 12.0 that it would be bizarre to pretend that it has a fighting chance to smack around Xal. And I don't think 12.1 will be about the Light at all.

This story really needs a patch about the Light before Xal otherwise they will basically recover in a questline or two or they are sidelined until Arathi expac.

[Skildar]

Bitching that things were forgotten when we haven't even started playing the max level launch content is legitimaty deranged but that's not surprising for someone using terms like "dindu"


Nor is it surprising you'd call Alleria a deadbeat when the writers have gone out of their way specifically to show that turyalon has no idea how to be a father to his son because he was essentially raised by the light. That scene in the arator short was showing Alleria cared about Arator in the ways arator needs to be cared about

And turyalon is literally criticized by the narrative for not protecting people and instead giving into the lights wrath... Like Arator's whole journey is about helping him reconnect with the non violent side of the light, and Liadrin's story in Zulaman is showing her as a person with a complex and holistic understanding of the light compared to the people who's expierence was "fighting the forever war for 1000 years in space"


Maybe it just makes a little sense that the man who never had a real family dynamic and spent 10 time his natural life span fighting the infinite space war might be a bad dad

Arator had a family... He was apparently raised by Veresa. But that's beside the points Val raised. Everything in Midnight is there to change the depiction of Turalyon, he's not the sensible paladin that questions morals and goes against the Light to accept that her wife is not perceived as worthy for his god but she still is to him.
In this expansion alone he falls down to being sometimes in his past role (shield scene) but most of the times the bad guy, bad husband, bad father, bad leader, bad paladin, etc. Like every scene with Lor'Themar he can't help himself but spread his joy and zealotry of the Light. The most zealot he ever shown before was letting his god corrupt Illidan.

And the worst thing about Midnight is that everyone keeps telling Arator that he is right when he is blatantly not. Even at the end of Zul'Aman you get the confirmation that Zul'Jan is a warmonger aiming at the Elves. But Liadrin, Lor'Themar tell you that they feel ashamed of what they've done and they should have listened to Arator. The 40year old acting disrespectfully to his regent and to his superior and can't articulate any reasoning or even trust that the guy next to him that has lived 10 000 years might know a bit better how ugly it could get to let trolls roam their land.

It's constant. It doesn't mean the story is garbage but it draws a gap with how the Light used to be represented, with no narrative to make you go with it. And it's the same with some character's portrayal, and it's a bit too much for me. We will see down the line what their full story is but I'm not holding great hope as TWW didn't spend a lot of time continuing its storylines patches to patches.

P.S. : The moment Arator steps in to take the blow directed at Zul'jan is a so badly directed. The cinematic doesn't show it but you're supposed to have Lor'themar, Liadrin, Rommath, some Blood Elves armed forces and your character next to them. But Zul'jan just stroll off. If we weren't shown Turalyon's eyes flaring as a bull stomps before it charges, Arator would have clearly been the blinded zealot in my eyes. He's the one gone so mad he's becoming suicidal.