Midnight 12.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[AOL Instant Messenger]

https://x.com/soulsobreezy/status/17...243245289?s=20 If only...

The new URL still reads as a porn site to me.

[Eldryth]

im not in here alot but did this get exposed as a fake already what is it from?

The poster admitted it in another thread. It's just an AI-generated image he had made, and it's actually supposed to be Iridikron.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...7#post54227785

[AOL Instant Messenger]

The poster admitted it in another thread. It's just an AI-generated image he had made, and it's actually supposed to be Iridikron.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...7#post54227785

I honestly thought he cited Fyrakk, going off the pointy chin. Otherwise, called it.

[Teriz]

Toweliee's leak is looking better and better everyday.

[Swnem]

Here's what I'd like the expansion to be (in case a World Revamp is off the table or coming as a patch).

I'm envisioning it as a great journey and expedition into the unknown. You know all the stories. King Kong. Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Core. Heck even Star Wars: Episode 1, when they're travelling to Gungan City and then on to the capital of Naboo.

• New Hub: Undermine. A sprawling underground city of Goblins, Gnomes, merchants from all over the world, wondrous sights to be seen and experiences to be had. Undermine is connected to different underground locations, via great tunnels and passageways. Some are travelled with mining carts along long railways, but you can also use your dynamic flying mounts or even walk if you're up for a bit of a treck.
  
• New Class: Tinker. Every race gains access to the new Tinker class, that comes with specs for tanking, support DPS, and healing. Early access to the class comes with the pre-order.
  
• Dragonriding upgrades: Now called simply dynamic flying, this way of flying on supported mounts will allow you to brave every element, and fly, swim or ride across all the zones without ever needing to dismount. Your mount will adapt to the elements.
  
• New landmass: Avaloren. This is the first vertical landmass introduced to World of Warcraft. Consisting of four unique and interconnected zones, beginning at the surface level and descending all the way to the core of Azeroth, Avaloren provides a journey unlike any other. The best part? You can use your dynamic flying mount to travel all the way from top to bottom in one go - no loading screens required. Additionally, each zone is themed a little bit around a particular element.
  
• Zone 1 - Air: Kezan. The island of Kezan is a zone of itself, featuring the tropical island in its post-Cataclysm state, a few villages and harbours with ships that carry you across Azeroth along different trade routes. There's also a cave entrance taking you to Undermine below. The relatively small island sits in in the middle of a large zone and is surrounded by little islets. The water between Kezan and these islets is shallow, allowing players to wade through much of it. The zone is vertical and rather windy, with the large (now dormant) volcano dominating the landscape. The weather effects of this zone are very impactful. Sometimes it's a clear day with a blue and sunny sky, while other times there will be terrible storms raging. It is generally windy, and the fresh sea breeze often causes flags to billow from the ships' masts.
  
• Zone 2 - Water: Azshari Depths. This is a Naga themed underwater zone. You access this zone by travelling along tunnels and pipes from the Undermine, out into the sea. But it is also accessible directly from the Kezan zone above, and the fiery zone below, using your mount. The tunnel from Undermine just sort ejects you into the open water, deep below the surface. You'll be using technology to breathe and move smoothly across the seabead or through the water, though. Queen Azshara's Naga are busy in this zone.
  
• Zone 3 - Fire: Khaz Algar. This zone is meant to invoke feelings of adventure and exploration, as you journey towards the planet's core. You're essentially travelling through the crust, and the lava tunnels of Kezan, deep beneath the volcano. I think the earthen of Khaz Algar probably dwell somewhere down here. You can use your mount to reach the earth zone below or the water zone above from this place, they're all connected.
  
• Zone 4 - Earth: The Core of Azeroth, Avaloren. This is the zone furthest down, and is essentially a huge chamber near the core of the planet. In the middle stands the Titan facility Uldaz, and it is all surrounded by a large protective dome. A bit like Atlantis (2001, Disney). It is a beautiful and radiant place, full of crystals. But the magic of the dome and presence of Azeroth's world-soul also makes this place teeming with life, light, and beauty. Once, the Titan keeper Innaria stood watch in place, but she was overthrown by the titan-forged affected by whatever came out of the fissure at Sector AR-938. Since then, they've lived as free people. Odyn consider them heretics for abandoning their cause, and have sent multiple expeditions down below, before and after the Sundering. At one point, they were influenced by the Old God who turned them from titan-forged to something else, but that Old God was slain by her brethren in a civil war. Since then, they've prospered as free beings of their own realm. They're creatures of Order and Shadow, but feel no loyalty to either. They're not regular mortals such as the humans and dwarves, but they're not machines either. Recently, however, the Harbinger has returned to bring them back into the fold with her whispers. Now, they labour to unearth the dark heart of the fallen Old God, so that it might be infused with the essence of Galakrond, and be revived. Then, it is only a matter of time before it consumes the world-soul of Azeroth! Will you be able to restore this utopia to its former glory, free it from the tendrils of corruption and save the world-soul?
  
• Notable characters: Thrall is key, obviously. So are Tyr and the Dragon Aspects. But we'll also bring with us representatives from the Horde and Alliance, and make a few new acquaintances among the goblins and the Avalorians. Iridikron will play a large role, as will the Harbinger (might she be Xal'atath?) and to a lesser extent the Elemental Lords.
  
• Major feature: Delving. Work with the Goblins or the Gnomes in Undermine to construct and customise your great burrowing machine, which will allow you to visit other underground locations in the blink of an eye, including secret caves, tunnels and islands where there are treasures and secrets aplenty. While you are able to travel between zones using your dynamic flying mount, this machine will bring your travelling expedition with you. This might come in handy as you face the unknown.

Nice effort. That would be great.

[Thomir]

Toweliee's leak is looking better and better everyday.

What has Toweliee leaked?

[Houle]

The new URL still reads as a porn site to me.

Ahhh you just dont get Elons absolute GENUIS /s

[Swnem]

...That's going to be a massive disappointment if it ends up being Cata Classic if not an actual revamp for retail. And probably upset both Retail and Classic players (specifically those that don't want Cata and just only want TBC and Wrath instead).

No, it won't.

I have tried to reason this before but peeps like you don't get it.
Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms have about 50 zones. A new expansion comes out with 4 zones.
In what world, with what resources do you imagine a world revamp? Get real.
If it happened, it would be the same as cataclysm. Lots of content drought cause the resources went into revamping zones and quests for leveling, which most players won't even experience.
It's insanity. It will be a disaster.

What Ion has said is that they will keep updating the old world like they have done in BfA. With patches and alternative content. A once at a time revamp will mean very bad news for the game.

[Krelivane]

No, it won't.

I have tried to reason this before but peeps like you don't get it.
Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms have about 50 zones. A new expansion comes out with 4 zones.
In what world, with what resources do you imagine a world revamp? Get real.
If it happened, it would be the same as cataclysm. Lots of content drought cause the resources went into revamping zones and quests for leveling, which most players won't even experience.
It's insanity. It will be a disaster.

What Ion has said is that they will keep updating the old world like they have done in BfA. With patches and alternative content. A once at a time revamp will mean very bad news for the game.

Idk, considering the vastly larger team size and the ability to have parallel design structures; a world revamp remains a possibility.

[leothar]

The new URL still reads as a porn site to me.

What makes you think it's not a porn site?

[Teriz]

What has Toweliee leaked?

Underground expansion. Not sea-based and no world revamp.

[Krelivane]

Underground expansion. Not sea-based and no world revamp.

ew

[huth]

Ahhh you just dont get Elons absolute GENUIS /s

I'm perfectly fine with Elon's new x-plattform on his x-website and his x-company.

[CasualFilth]

Toweliee's leak is looking better and better everyday.

Source on the Toweliee leak?

[Revamp Man]

So blizz ripped off a web series for the underground mole world

[Woggmer]

No, it won't.

I have tried to reason this before but peeps like you don't get it.
Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms have about 50 zones. A new expansion comes out with 4 zones.
In what world, with what resources do you imagine a world revamp? Get real.
If it happened, it would be the same as cataclysm. Lots of content drought cause the resources went into revamping zones and quests for leveling, which most players won't even experience.
It's insanity. It will be a disaster.

Try and compare what they had for Cata back then to the team they have now. They gobbled up a game dev studio last year when they were working on DF.. so to say they don't have resources isn't true anymore.

The only reason the Cata revamp took a lot resources of them wasn't just them writing new stories.. if anything the real pain they went through was having to deconstruct and reconstruct EVERYTHING from scratch.. not because they wanted to revamp the world, but because they wanted to compensate for FLYING BEING ADDED IN. When you do fly in all those old zones, you'll find a lot of missing textures and assets to some of the buildings making them look like an eyesore from a bird's eye view. This is why Eversong Forest, Ghostlands, Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles don't allow flying, and also why you can't fly over Stratholme.

Plus... It's been about 12 years since the Cataclysm, both in-game and IRL, a lot of characters a growing older, quite a few notable ones are already dead or not leaders of their factions anymore, and even kids that we knew in TBC are becoming adults like that one Children's Week blood elf we looked after is now a paladin protege under Lady Liadrin. And to add to that.. new plot points are keep getting added in since BFA which keeps pointing more and more to the possibility of a revamp.

What Ion has said is that they will keep updating the old world like they have done in BfA. With patches and alternative content. A once at a time revamp will mean very bad news for the game.

Now that is unrealistic. They don't update zones without a reason, in BFA they updated those zones because they were key Warfront battles. They had ideas for different prototype Warfronts but they rejected all those ideas. It's easier to do it all the updates in one go rather than one at a time for no reason or for something as minor as one questline like the Heritage Armor quests.
A revamp of the old zones is improbable, but not impossible. Even Ion said that they learned a lot since the Cata revamp, which suggests he wants to do something similar but not the same as what they did with Cata's revamp.

[meroes]

I just want to see the reactions to the new "dragonriding" mechanic. Everyone will say its worse than dragonriding when it's objectively better.

[Teriz]

Source on the Toweliee leak?

There were multiple videos for it, but Toweliee took them down.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Try and compare what they had for Cata back then to the team they have now. They gobbled up a game dev studio last year when they were working on DF.. so to say they don't have resources isn't true anymore.

The only reason the Cata revamp took a lot resources of them wasn't just them writing new stories.. if anything the real pain they went through was having to deconstruct and reconstruct EVERYTHING from scratch.. not because they wanted to revamp the world, but because they wanted to compensate for FLYING BEING ADDED IN. When you do fly in all those old zones, you'll find a lot of missing textures and assets to some of the buildings making them look like an eyesore from a bird's eye view. This is why Eversong Forest, Ghostlands, Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles don't allow flying, and also why you can't fly over Stratholme.

Plus... It's been about 12 years since the Cataclysm, both in-game and IRL, a lot of characters a growing older, quite a few notable ones are already dead or not leaders of their factions anymore, and even kids that we knew in TBC are becoming adults like that one Children's Week blood elf we looked after is now a paladin protege under Lady Liadrin. And to add to that.. new plot points are keep getting added in since BFA which keeps pointing more and more to the possibility of a revamp.



Now that is unrealistic. They don't update zones without a reason, in BFA they updated those zones because they were key Warfront battles. They had ideas for different prototype Warfronts but they rejected all those ideas. It's easier to do it all the updates in one go rather than one at a time for no reason or for something as minor as one questline like the Heritage Armor quests.
A revamp of the old zones is improbable, but not impossible. Even Ion said that they learned a lot since the Cata revamp, which suggests he wants to do something similar but not the same as what they did with Cata's revamp.

Let's be real; the problem with a complete World Revamp is "what to even DO with 50 zones" when the leveling has been whittled down to 3-4 zones. The current philosophy is to keep the leveling up to the new exp level range consistent, so new players don't have to sink in more than 5-6 hours getting ready for the current expansion.

So let's say 5 zones would make a solid new leveling experience, let's make it 10 with Horde and Alliance exclusive. Let's even get crazier and let's envision a Neutral/Independent leveling where there's no faction war. You still have to figure out what you do with those other 35 zones.

Sure, you can have a new leveling experience with alternative zones, or even use some for end game; but still, I don't think you would go over even half of those zones.

There are some possibilities. If Blizzard wants to push for replayability and for player to have more alts -or have some sort of horizontal progression- they could actually make more leveling experiences than just 3. Still, the more they are, the more dev time and resources spent on something that's not necessary.

Maybe use/keep zones on hold for future content and just give them a visual pass for now. Maybe some of those zones could become end-game areas, maybe other form of gameplay altogether, maybe something like the events on the Dragon Isles, but rotating through the Old World.

But yeah, a huge issue with the world revamp is that since the squish, we don't need even half of those areas to level, so what to even do with them is the question.

[ChairmanKaga]

I have tried to reason this before but peeps like you don't get it.
Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms have about 50 zones. A new expansion comes out with 4 zones.
In what world, with what resources do you imagine a world revamp? Get real.

"All zones are all the same size and level of complexity" is a hell of a take.