The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Woggmer]

So 4chan leak was right bout heathstone and metzens big role(but that was easier to guess)

https://twitter.com/BellularGaming/s...0k-o6fv5g&s=19

4chan leak
https://reddit.com/r/Asmongold/s/YrFQx6BzDU

So... I'll just copy what was written for DF here for future reference in case anyone else reads it.

"Dragonflight is the remains of a cancelled mobile game co produced with chinese partners that was bolted onto World of Warcraft to pad a massive gap after the catastrophic response to patch 9.1. This lead to a ship (shift) in tone that the players have noticed and found off putting. 11.0 is to be announced at Blizzcon as a shift to a free to play seasonal battlepass model similar to Destiny 2 with smaller scale 'micro expansions' sold as optional premium dlc that will include like new dungeons that require these DLC packs to access."

Dragonflight being the remains of a cancelled mobile game is one of the most craziest baffling takes I've ever seen.

[Ferlion]

So... I'll just copy what was written for DF here for future reference in case anyone else reads it.

"Dragonflight is the remains of a cancelled mobile game co produced with chinese partners that was bolted onto World of Warcraft to pad a massive gap after the catastrophic response to patch 9.1. This lead to a ship (shift) in tone that the players have noticed and found off putting. 11.0 is to be announced at Blizzcon as a shift to a free to play seasonal battlepass model similar to Destiny 2 with smaller scale 'micro expansions' sold as optional premium dlc that will include like new dungeons that require these DLC packs to access."

Dragonflight being the remains of a cancelled mobile game is one of the most craziest baffling takes I've ever seen.

It also says cataclysm classic is not in the works, and I'm like a solid 80% sure we've had cata classic strings datamined already.

[Shamolo]

It's worth noting that "Dragonflight is the scraps of the cancelled mobile game", was a common attack on 4chan against the expansion that came out after the announcement of the cancelled Warcraft mobile game happened.
Unfortunately for people who still spin that narrative, the timeline never added up.

[Nymrohd]

So... I'll just copy what was written for DF here for future reference in case anyone else reads it.

"Dragonflight is the remains of a cancelled mobile game co produced with chinese partners that was bolted onto World of Warcraft to pad a massive gap after the catastrophic response to patch 9.1. This lead to a ship (shift) in tone that the players have noticed and found off putting. 11.0 is to be announced at Blizzcon as a shift to a free to play seasonal battlepass model similar to Destiny 2 with smaller scale 'micro expansions' sold as optional premium dlc that will include like new dungeons that require these DLC packs to access."

Dragonflight being the remains of a cancelled mobile game is one of the most craziest baffling takes I've ever seen.

And that is the ESO model of play.

[Worldshaper]

So... I'll just copy what was written for DF here for future reference in case anyone else reads it.

"Dragonflight is the remains of a cancelled mobile game co produced with chinese partners that was bolted onto World of Warcraft to pad a massive gap after the catastrophic response to patch 9.1. This lead to a ship (shift) in tone that the players have noticed and found off putting. 11.0 is to be announced at Blizzcon as a shift to a free to play seasonal battlepass model similar to Destiny 2 with smaller scale 'micro expansions' sold as optional premium dlc that will include like new dungeons that require these DLC packs to access."

Dragonflight being the remains of a cancelled mobile game is one of the most craziest baffling takes I've ever seen.

That one hurts my brain. It doesn't even make sense.

How do you salvage a mobile game as an expansion for WoW? WoW obviously has its own specific engine made out of spaghetti code and unicorn blood. How do you just plaster an abandoned mobile game on top of that? I'm sure Marlamin can fill us in, but my gut says this isn't possible from a technical standpoint.

The other thing is, we know roughly how what the development cycle of WoW expansions looks like. They enter full production about the time the last one is done, so about 2 years per expansion. Is the leak suggesting they just sort of took the theme from the abandoned mobile game 2 years ago, and applied it to WoW? What would even be the benefit of that? Surely, they already had a story in mind for Dragonflight, and I doubt they'd hesitate to just scrap whatever story a simple mobile game had.

The third problem as I see it, is why they'd make a mobile game that looks even remotely similar to a WoW expansion in terms of story and gameplay. Surely, a mobile game would focus on something specific and find its own niche, like Hearthstone.

The sentence about a gap after 9.1 I won't even attempt to understand, it's just gibberish.

While I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of smaller, annual expansions, I doubt they'd go all in with a Battle Pass when they literally just launched the Trading Post system in Deagonflight. That is their version of a Battle Pass. Keep subscribing, get loot.

[Woggmer]

While I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of smaller, annual expansions, I doubt they'd go all in with a Battle Pass when they literally just launched the Trading Post system in Deagonflight. That is their version of a Battle Pass. Keep subscribing, get loot.

The thing about the Trading Post is that they'll need to change the game entirely just compensate adding "non-cosmetic items" into the Trading Post to make it work like a battle pass.. like EXP Boosts, Upgrade Materials, Gold, Food with Buffs, and other pointless stuff while the cosmetic item is saved for last... This sort of thing can work in some MMOs.. but it doesn't work in WoW.

Whoever posted that 4Chan leak probably just wrote it as a bait.

Though... the idea of WoW becoming FreeToPlay isn't too farfetched but they would need to change the whole game and lock things behind DLC... which would only bring a lot of ire to the playerbase.

[Pheraz]

Oh i'm against it cause it's a terrible idea. No doubt about that.
Ya'll will also be leaving the game 1 month in once you have no content and saying how lazy Blizz is for reusing assets.

Funnily i have not seen the question answered. People are just saying "nah-huh" even though the staggering amount of work needed to pull it off is still there.
The argument is "oh they got a new support studio now". Like that is nearly enough.
Another argument is "some zones are smaller". Even if you do zones 1 to 1, it is still more than double current expansions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In all honesty, you have unrealistic expectations that Blizz will never meet and Cataclysm was a disaster. Why want that disaster again? I don't get it. Peeps don't learn.

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So... slap world quests around all zones and have some small updates? I don't think we need a new expansion to do that.

Cataclysm was not a disaster. Who told you that? Highly exaggerated

[Chickat]

Towelliee seemed to hint at an underground expansion, which got people here arguing for a while.

A Naga "Terrarium" back piece got datamined (possibly for Blizzcon), and Scaleface and wowexdev got sent a bunch of pictures that they aren't sure are AI generated or real. (they look AI generated):

Set of small images

"Void Dreadlord"

Blue beasts and purple orb

Sword portal?

The textures for what looks to be a spectral/lunar (?) gryphon also got datamined.

Then there's today's news of Metzen coming back and more layoffs at Blizzard.

That's pretty much it. Bad leak season overall.

Thanks. Other than the actual datamined assets the other stuff while neat seems fake to me.

Also, the lunar gryphon seems really high res?

[Raetary]

Also, the lunar gryphon seems really high res?

Because it's a real texture.

[Samin]

That one hurts my brain. It doesn't even make sense.

It's just a disgruntled player's doom fanfic.

[Worldshaper]

It's interesting to look at WoW's sub numbers over the years, and then revenue more recently.

Seems to be that the peak was reached during the end of WotLK when we faced Arthas and with the launch of Cata. Then it declined from there, with brief resurgences with the launch of WoD, and during Legion. Supposedly, Dragonflight didn't really bring players back but may have stopped the freefall from Shadowlands.

It just seems like players resonate with the "good old stories" they remember from the RTS games, and Azeroth in general. I'm sure this is a lesson Blizzard has learned from watching the successes of Classic, amidst retail's ongoing decline or stagnation.

While I do think the Void and Hour of Twilight is the next expansion's antagonist and threat, I think it's very reasonable to assume the expansion will focus heavily on Azeroth and familiar faces/places.

It seems unlikely they'll do something extreme in that regard. Which, frankly, means the entire expansion's setting probably won't be: K'aresh, "hollow Azeroth"/Undermine, Elemental Planes, Avaloren (if it's very outlandish), etc.

I think we could be looking at something more grounded in that sense. Possible candidates:

• South Seas (fan favourite).
• Other side of Azeroth but it has a very "Vanilla" feel about it, with rivers, forests, mountains, lakes, deserts, ice and snow, jungles, etc.
• World revamp.
• If Avaloren ends up being a bit like the Broken Isles, with lots of traditional zones, then I think it is a possibility they'll just add that as our new continent.
• Some type of partial revamp, such as focusing heavily on Lordaeron.

[Darkarath]

No chance that WoW is becoming free to play IMO.

Maybe when Riot release the LOL MMO, if WoW is not doing well. Before that? Unlikely.

[Worldshaper]

Thanks. Other than the actual datamined assets the other stuff while neat seems fake to me.

Also, the lunar gryphon seems really high res?

The gryphon is super interesting, because it combines something traditional (the gryphon) with what is presumably a future theme or aesthetic.

Which has me even more in the mindset of: Azeroth will recieve a HD refresh, but it'll come under attack from something. It'll be night, darkness, or something along those lines.

What would fit in such a scenario, as the underlying cause? I'm thinking:

- Elune and the lunar cycles
- The Void and some type of eternal night (space-inspired rather than tentacles)

This is likely just a nonsense scenario, but maybe it goes something like this:

The Earth Mother was an ancient creature that predated the Titans and the Old Gods. She was Elune, a manifestation of Light and Shadow. Her essence is preserved in Azeroth's two moons and the sun. Together, these maintain a balance on Azeroth. They uphold a great cycle of light and darkness, life and death, etc.

The Harbinger is going after Elune's dark side, which is essentially the Void. She wants to put Azeroth in a perpetual state of nightfall, which the Hour of Twilight precedes. I'm not sure how the world-soul relates to all of that. Perhaps it is a key to making it happen, or maybe they will be able to summon the Void Lords to consume the world-soul once the eternal night is here.

Heck, maybe the other side of Azeroth is stuck in some kind of perpetual darkness.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Damn, i was hyped yesterday about metzen news and him possibly being on stage but now after reading some of the posts about these "leaks" and wow going f2p im like eeeeeeh.

I feel like now everytime new leak comes out, it makes the situation looks more worse than better when it comes for the future. ^^

It's like a trainwreck that hopefully won't happen at blizzcon.

[Reman]

New round of layoffs at Blizzard, but it seems to be the Hearthstone team. We might get some fresh leaks

[Nymrohd]

Cataclysm was not a disaster. Who told you that? Highly exaggerated

I remember subs pretty much stayed stable throughout Cata at near the highest point WoW reached.
Cata wasted resources with a very poorly conceived revamp and then it had one of the least successful raids when it comes to encounter design at the end plus some real growing pains on release with dungeon difficulty and difficulty parity between 10/25man raiding.

WoW did not have a disaster until WoD's .1 patch.

[Revamp Man]

I remember subs pretty much stayed stable throughout Cata at near the highest point WoW reached.
Cata wasted resources with a very poorly conceived revamp and then it had one of the least successful raids when it comes to encounter design at the end plus some real growing pains on release with dungeon difficulty and difficulty parity between 10/25man raiding.

WoW did not have a disaster until WoD's .1 patch.

Cata had problems
BUT
compared to the expansions after (including legion) they weren't bad and addressed quickly

[Luck4]

Damn, i was hyped yesterday about metzen news and him possibly being on stage but now after reading some of the posts about these "leaks" and wow going f2p im like eeeeeeh.

I feel like now everytime new leak comes out, it makes the situation looks more worse than better when it comes for the future. ^^

It's like a trainwreck that hopefully won't happen at blizzcon.

I've been feeling this way since the beginning of last week, which ironically brings me memories from the 9.0 speculation thread (Shadowlands), where the more stuff got leaked/hinted at, the more disappointed I became.

Now I'm just hoping for some endgame changes, at least.

I think @Cosmicspreads will be pleased.

[Nymrohd]

Cata had problems
BUT
compared to the expansions after (including legion) they weren't bad and addressed quickly

Sure it has problems, every expansion had them. It's the word "disaster" that just did not work for Cata. No expansion other than WoD and SL had disasters imo.

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I've been feeling this way since the beginning of last week, which ironically brings me memories from the 9.0 speculation thread (Shadowlands), where the more stuff got leaked/hinted at, the more disappointed I became.

Honestly I remember the Blizzcon announcement and the only part that sounded exciting to me was original Torghast concept where you would have been able to gear through it (and then it got amazing reviews from all the streamers in the alpha). Obviously that version never went live as a reward system and the difficulty was removed super fast as well.
I was momentarily excited for Soulbinds since they seemed such a perfect way to do fanservice (imagine soulbinding with dead heroes and villains we met or heard off instead of random people we just met in Shadowlands) only soon after to see the Venthyr Soulbinding slide and realize that no, my paladin wouldn't get to Soulbind to Uther.
I think Dragonflight was the first expac announcement I was entering with no expectations and no real hype (and little was created) and for 11.0 I am not expecting much either but rather business as usual (Avaloren with 4-5 zones, 8 dungeons and a starter raid). I think if there is a revamp, it is sadly more likely for 12.0 even though it is wasting the anniversary marketing opportunity.

[Pheraz]

I think you misunderstand what the post is proposing there. Not adding High Elves to retail but a third rail of WoW Retail, Classic (Cataclysm) and Classic+. The idea here being the Dark Portal did not open and this Classic+ goes in a different direction.

Lol. That sounds like an absolute bad idea.
I mean people can come up with whatever idea they want this is a free world but I hope those people don't assume that this idea would be liked by the majority. And ofc not the wow designers