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

[Revamp Man]

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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BfA had the issue with the weekly cache at launch where a dev said "we changed it 2 weeks before the beta went down and there were no complaints" because they gimped azerite gear acquisition

While solved that was a huge issue

[Worldshaper]

The void is not strong enough. I really really really hope Blizzard will dismantle the void's strong PR/propaganda just as they did with the Light and Order.

While Light and Order was more about their supposed unquestioned benevolence, for the void it is more about their unquestioned inevitability. That's not to say the void would just turn out to be "a dude behind a curtain", but that the news of their impending victory have been greatly exaggerated.

I don't know. If you look back, it seems like a lot of the evens throughout Azeroth's history happened precisely the way they needed to for the Void to win. I think it's been like this: the Titans found the most perfect timeline in order for Azeroth's world-soul to survive and eventually "bloom". But Aman'Thul also had a vision that the Old Gods would one day take Azeroth, which is why he allowed Tyr to create the Dragon Aspects as a safeguard against this fate. Now, it seems like the Dragon Aspects are reclaiming their powers after preventing the Hour of Twilight once, but the question is if that's enough, if it's too late, or if it'll end up bein the wrong sort of power.

[Jastall]

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.

It doesn't have to make sense, it's 4chan. Everything posted there is either reactionary hyperbole or trollbaiting. Dragonflight has a generally less hardcore artstyle than most previous expansions, and we know cartoony artstyles are for mobile games, therefore Dragonflight was a mobile game and mobile games are bad therefore Dragonflight is bad. Of course the real world doesn't work that way at all and there's already a Warcraft mobile game actually out in beta, but facts must not get in the way of fiction.

It is literally the same brand of logic as "Socrates has teeth, a donkey has teeth, therefore Socrates is a donkey".



WoW isn't becoming free to play anytime soon, I'd wager. They're still selling a couple million expansions every 2 years, of which a large amount will sub for several months if not all its length. The game isn't Wrath level of a money printer, but combine that with the token and services/shop and it's likely still making money hand over fist. The game would need to lose a lot more players for a free to play move to make any sort of sense.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

YoY growth is still happening with World of Warcraft through the MTX Model. So yeah, hyperdoomerism has not really any legs to stand on unless the vision shown at Blizzcon differs.

[Marlamin]

Holly's 8 week cadence comment remains to be seen. The Game Files state otherwise and indicate we are cutting this expansion off and moving into the next one without the Game Director outlining what our expansions consist of.

Keep in mind the "game files" only going to 10.2.5 is based on info from November/December 2022. Not saying it's wrong or anything, just to take that with a grain of salt as plans can change both ways (less patches, more patches).

[Jastall]

As I posted elsewhere, Blizz may view retail as a dead end. Classic plus is a way to correct mistakes made that resulted in massive subscription losses.

A dead end that sells millions of copies per expansion, before sub fees, tokens, services and all? Most devs would love to launch dead ends such as this.

As well, if people hate what the current dev teams does with the lore, I question the logic of then being excited with what the exact same dev team would do with the lore, just from a different starting point. What's the definition of insanity again?

Classic+ feels like pure cope to me. The entire point of Classic for Blizzard is that it's a relatively low-cost way to please a section of players that will never be pleased by modern design. Classic+ would cost a lot more money to tape modern design to old-school sensibilities/graphics/etc and likely satisfy no one, because Classic players don't want to touch anything made by modern Blizzard and retail players are far more interested in the game they play continuing on than going for a hard reset to please people that hate the game that they themselves enjoy right now.

[Murlocos]

Asking if 4chan leaks have been accurate in the past is like asking if MMO-Champion leaks have been accurate because Boubouille leaked Cataclysm back in the day. If you want a general rule of thumb, the more one person claims to know every facet of a company and the thought processes behind the decisions being made, the more you should wonder what person would possibly know all this. Especially on a forum like /v/ which is 90% ragebait threads.

Anyone remember the last big Blizzard /v/ "leak" where the company was supposed to be broken up and restructured into Insight by now?

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Keep in mind the "game files" only going to 10.2.5 is based on info from November/December 2022. Not saying it's wrong or anything, just to take that with a grain of salt as plans can change both ways (less patches, more patches).

Well, I am speaking more specifically to the eerie coincidence of a Second Season mount being added in a x.2 patch that happened with 9.2 and now is happening again with 10.2.

[Marlamin]

Well, I am speaking more specifically to the eerie coincidence of a Second Season mount being added in a x.2 patch that happened with 9.2 and now is happening again with 10.2.

That's fair, just commenting on that specifically because some people are treating it as scripture.

[Nymrohd]

That's fair, just commenting on that specifically because some people are treating it as scripture.

I'd say at least as far as raids are concerned, my biggest indication is the Soridormi daily where you get to be a quest giver. In one of the quests you give, you send Aeonormu to effectively play an expansion which is described as having about three raids.

[Ersula]

However, it then goes on to state "right now he's supporting World of Warcraft leadership in crafting the next generation of adventures". That implies, at the very least, that he isn't hands on for retail development. He's supporting others who lead that.

So either he's heading up some unannounced project, OR, he's hands on working on Classic+.

Is there any good reason "The next generation of adventures" doesn't mean "retail's upcoming expansion" because it seems like that's the most obvious thing that statement would elude to.

Again I point to the fact about a year ago Retail WoW was actively looking for a Lead Narrative Director, despite Danuser fulfilling that role during Dragonflight. Danuser is handling a lot of the writing, but with Metzen being his boss. That points to the nature of Metzen's new title focusing on congruity between the warcraft properties and despite the wild claims people keep making about classic here, retail is the franchise's tentpole. Otherwise Metzen's title would have been "Creative Director with no reference to exactly what he was working on" People claiming Classic takes some sort of precedence over Retail have lost track of reality.

However, even Classic ties into the bigger picture. For one, you need somebody in charge to tell people what's OK or not with regards to respecting Classic and its lore. But I can't imagine his day to day job involves a lot of creative meetings around the lore of Classic (unless + is coming, of course).

If they really intend classic to progress at the same 2 year per rate per expansion, they'll probably have a big restart every 3 expansions. Season of Mastery+ with themeing like Diablo seasons: I hope they get really outlandish with it, say one time they reset, they let you play classic with the class race combinations they added in cataclysm, or legion style invasions etc.

Seasons of Mastery still don't require a dedicated executive creative director though.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I'd say at least as far as raids are concerned, my biggest indication is the Soridormi daily where you get to be a quest giver. In one of the quests you give, you send Aeonormu to effectively play an expansion which is described as having about three raids.

I have no words and I am confused, what the fuck Blizzard.

[Sondrelk]

I have no words and I am confused, what the fuck Blizzard.

I wouldnt think too hard about it. Last expansion had three raids, and I doubt the writers got orders from above to manage expectations for the future by specifying three raids only. If anything I would think it just as likely that they sat down to write and thought Three major patches with a raid = Three raids, obviously.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I wouldnt think too hard about it. Last expansion had three raids, and I doubt the writers got orders from above to manage expectations for the future by specifying three raids only. If anything I would think it just as likely that they sat down to write and thought Three major patches with a raid = Three raids, obviously.

I still doubt they will use Blizzcon stage to announce a negative Roadmap and bad business decisions. In Gamespot interview, we trust.

[Ersula]

I wouldnt think too hard about it. Last expansion had three raids, and I doubt the writers got orders from above to manage expectations for the future by specifying three raids only. If anything I would think it just as likely that they sat down to write and thought Three major patches with a raid = Three raids, obviously.

Shadowlands had three raids all with at least 10 bosses. I think that's a healthy amount. With 10.2, we haven't gotten quite as many bosses & based on how much left we have left in the standard 2 year cycle is why I think there will be a fourth. But I thought Shadowlands raids were the best part of that expansion. Am I alone in that feeling? It seems like the raids were the last thing people were complaining about Shadowlands.

Who wants to bet they alternate from this point on? Four Raids one expansion, then 3 raids & a fated season the next. That would be consistent with what happened in BFA.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I think wow could use some 1 boss raid again to just kill some big bad, but blizzard is probably just thinking about these "world first" marathons..

[Cheezits]

I will say the recent stuff we have (Cata Classic, revampy assets, interview statements) goes against Classic+, just confused why the guy who usually knows things is banking so hard on it unless it's to bait engagement from the people who actually want it/the people on here.

[Nebron]

Danuser has completely reshaped Warcraft's cosmology to his own liking, and his new direction is appealing to a lot of people who aren't afraid of change. I bet even Metzen likes it because on twitter he never said anything negative about Danuser's new vision. Metzen even praised DF story several times.

I'm not afraid of change and yet, I'm still disappoinment with the story direction since Steven Danuser took the steering wheel.
And - since when the lack of criticism is equivalent to appreciation?

[milkmustache]

I will say the recent stuff we have (Cata Classic, revampy assets, interview statements) goes against Classic+, just confused why the guy who usually knows things is banking so hard on it unless it's to bait engagement from the people who actually want it/the people on here.

If you're referring to Towellie, it feels like a really strange hill to die on. A majority of the evidence opposes what he says, but he's very insistent. Regardless, as cool as Classic+ would be, I can't imagine splitting the playerbase more is something Blizzard would like to do right now. Hope for 11.0 revamp, expect new places whether it be islands, underground, Avaloren, or a combination of all 3. Hope for a version of Classic+, expect Cata Classic.

[Shadowferal]

A dead end that sells millions of copies per expansion, before sub fees, tokens, services and all?

Citation please.