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

[Ersula]

Citation please.

The Quarterly Investors' call. They haven't given DF's exact numbers but every recent expansion has sold between 3 and 4 million copies. Dragonflight definitely isn't so lower that expansions become irrelevant. Maybe if they announce the next expansion will be free it would.

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.

People seem to be exaggerating what Towellie said: All he said is "This is very exciting for Classic Players" and people are acting like the metzen news means "Classic HD PLUS EXPANSION CONFIRMED"

[Shadowferal]

The Quarterly Investors' call. They haven't given DF's exact numbers...

Stop right there.
What you're saying is they had one good month or two that you know of out of the whole year. And maybe that could be expanded upon with a patch or two to maybe 5 months..6 months even. Should that paint a rosy picture here?

[Cheezits]

All he said is "This is very exciting for Classic Players" and people are acting like the metzen news means "Classic HD PLUS EXPANSION CONFIRMED"

How can this be framed in any way beyond "new content for Classic" when Classic currently is simply rereleases? Why would Classic players be excited about someone working on Retail?

You could argue he was saying "Classic players should be excited about Retail now" but that's not what he seems to be saying.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

People seem to be exaggerating what Towellie said: All he said is "This is very exciting for Classic Players" and people are acting like the metzen news means "Classic HD PLUS EXPANSION CONFIRMED"

?

I think he's just using Classic audience to bait them into thinking something is coming and then go "HAH 'GOTTEM" after Blizzcon Opening Ceremony, honestly.

It just completely contradicts the Gamespot interview.

[Nymrohd]

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

It's this fairly fun quest (A Multitude of Tasks) where Chromie asks you to do some trivial collect task and you tell her to go do it herself so you take up her spot for the day giving quests to adventurers. One of the parts of the quest is Aeonormu coming to tell you about a time disturbance and I'll quote below

We just got reports of a new time anomaly!
A time ripple has caused the Titans to not visit Azeroth! We need to send adventurers to the titans to convince them to come to Azeroth! They will likely have to work very closely with the Titans in their original battle against the old gods, and get to know them really well.
We estimate it will take roughly two years for an adventurer to complete this. as they travel across proto-Azeroth and deal with roughly three large scale enemy strongholds!

So, deal with roughly three large scale enemy strongholds. So the dev who made this considers an expansion to have roughly three raids.

[Villager720]

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 actually have nothing against the expansion of the "Cosmology" - it's how poorly that undertaking has been handled from both a story and lore perspective.
Shadowlands completely negated core tenets of lore and culture across all Azeroth with only the most basic effort put in to explain the "inconsistencies".
If you want to appreciate how poorly this was really dealt with, watch the Nobbel-Danuser late SL's interview/Q/A. Nobbel repeatedly hits him with glaring inconsistencies and missteps and Steve has very poor answers and grows increasingly irritable as this continues.
That is a primary issue I think a lot of folks have with the WoW lore now - it feels hastily crafted for the "now" without consideration for what came before.
Danuser didn't invent the Shadowlands or the majority of the Warcraft cosmology - he poorly implemented.

And all of the above is not even touching on just how poorly much of the story has been told of late. Inconsistent character actions and dialogues abounded across both BFA and Shadowlands with both being primarily carried narratively by "mystery box" elements with very poor payoffs.

[milkmustache]

?

My interpretation of this was that Classic+ would be more likely than a WoW 2, opposed to a direct confirmation of Classic+ and rebuttal of a retail world revamp/overhaul.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

So, deal with roughly three large scale enemy strongholds.

Eh I pass and I think a lot of people should too if this is the case going forward as a standard.

[Cheezits]

I think he's just using Classic audience to bait them into thinking something is coming and then go "HAH 'GOTTEM" after Blizzcon Opening Ceremony, honestly.

It just completely contradicts the Gamespot interview.

Or he's teasing about Cata Classic. But yeah, he's being weird.

I will give him full accolades if he's fully right, 11.0 is another Filler Island without factions and Classic+ is the true future of the game. And I will also probably finally quit WoW lol.

[Sondrelk]

It's this fairly fan quest (A Multitude of Tasks) where Chromie asks you to do some trivial collect task and you tell her to go do it herself so you take up her spot for the day giving quests to adventurers. One of the parts of the quest is Aeonormu coming to tell you about a time disturbance and I'll quote below


So, deal with roughly three large scale enemy strongholds. So the dev who made this considers an expansion to have roughly three raids.

Or alternatively he considered "three major strongholds" to mean the three major patches and their associated zones.

I wouldn't think too much about it honestly. Why would this quest be intentionally designed to hint at less content?

[Marlamin]

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.

I think some version of Classic+ isn't out of the question based on 1.15 being in the works for most of the year now.
1.13 was Classic, 1.14 was SoM/hardcore so 1.15 should be something at least just as substantial, whether or not that fits inside whatever people define Classic+ to be remains to be seen at BlizzCon.

I think Cata Classic is currently just based on Blizz removing "only usable in Outland/Northrend" from some flying mounts which while suspicious is still pretty insignifcant especially with the mount journal additions they've been doing in 3.4.3, so not a ton to go off there. No other hints so far outside of maybe that mount that MrGM found being a possible candidate for a Cata Classic deluxe edition, but that could be for a plethora of other things too so that's a stretch too.

Revamp-y assets feel like they aren't for classic as they'd be in the entirely wrong content branch (mainline/retail vs. classic) which would be the first time classic assets bleed into mainline (although the other way around does happen a lot). I'd like to see these used in retail though as the assets they'd be replacing are definitely in need of an update.

[Cheezits]

I think some version of Classic+ isn't out of the question based on 1.15 being in the works for most of the year now.
1.13 was Classic, 1.14 was SoM/hardcore so 1.15 should be something at least just as substantial, whether or not that fits inside whatever people define Classic+ to be remains to be seen at BlizzCon.

I think Cata Classic is currently just based on Blizz removing "only usable in Outland/Northrend" from some flying mounts which while suspicious is still pretty insignifcant especially with the mount journal additions they've been doing in 3.4.3, so not a ton to go off there. No other hints so far outside of maybe that mount that MrGM found being a possible candidate for a Cata Classic deluxe edition, but that could be for a plethora of other things too so that's a stretch too.

Revamp-y assets feel like they aren't for classic as they'd be in the entirely wrong content branch (mainline/retail vs. classic) which would be the first time classic assets bleed into mainline (although the other way around does happen a lot). I'd like to see these used in retail though as the assets they'd be replacing are definitely in need of an update.

I don't think a Classic Funtime Edition (moreso than SOM tweaks) is out of the cards, but I do think it sets some really bad precedent for dueling content creation that could tank the series if the teams aren't big enough. Like I really don't want Retail to get WORSE because they are now making TBC 2.0 etc.

People want Classic+ to be WoW 2 and even if it isn't that at the start, it could evolve to be that.

I think HD assets in Classic is getting less and less likely yeah.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Or he's teasing about Cata Classic. But yeah, he's being weird.

I will give him full accolades if he's fully right, 11.0 is another Filler Island without factions and Classic+ is the true future of the game. And I will also probably finally quit WoW lol.

To me it looks more like tryharding than just subtle hinting, but maybe it's all he wanted - to be in a discussion about it.

Well he got the attention no matter if he will end up being right or not, but to me he's being reeally weird about it this time, especially his last tweet where he almost speaks like dev from wowteam. ^^

[Ersula]

How can this be framed in any way beyond "new content for Classic" when Classic currently is simply rereleases? Why would Classic players be excited about someone working on Retail?

You could argue he was saying "Classic players should be excited about Retail now" but that's not what he seems to be saying.

• He doesn't have any actual insider information
• The idea that Metzen can recapture & bring to Retail what people like about Classic
• Season of Mastery isn't a classic expansion but its still new content

That second one is the most relevant.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I feel like if the 1.15 thing is still not resolved the week prior to Blizzcon (through a SoM 2 Announcement) then we can at least attest that something weird is going on involving Classic until that point it is essentially all just Towelliee and 4chan (Awakening leak, RIP BOZO Hyperdoomer leak).

I still don't understand 1.15 was Vendor'd and was expecting it to be deconfirmed to just be SoM 2 but yeah no dice.

[Villager720]

Revamp-y assets feel like they aren't for classic as they'd be in the entirely wrong content branch (mainline/retail vs. classic) which would be the first time classic assets bleed into mainline (although the other way around does happen a lot). I'd like to see these used in retail though as the assets they'd be replacing are definitely in need of an update.

Not to mention these assets were seeping into the game files well before Classic even launched. The notion that "no changes" Blizzard from 2019 somehow was already planning to scrap Cata Classic and do a revamp instead 4 years out for their little "experiment" is a wild take.

[Worldshaper]

I think some version of Classic+ isn't out of the question based on 1.15 being in the works for most of the year now.
1.13 was Classic, 1.14 was SoM/hardcore so 1.15 should be something at least just as substantial, whether or not that fits inside whatever people define Classic+ to be remains to be seen at BlizzCon.

I think Cata Classic is currently just based on Blizz removing "only usable in Outland/Northrend" from some flying mounts which while suspicious is still pretty insignifcant especially with the mount journal additions they've been doing in 3.4.3, so not a ton to go off there. No other hints so far outside of maybe that mount that MrGM found being a possible candidate for a Cata Classic deluxe edition, but that could be for a plethora of other things too so that's a stretch too.

Revamp-y assets feel like they aren't for classic as they'd be in the entirely wrong content branch (mainline/retail vs. classic) which would be the first time classic assets bleed into mainline (although the other way around does happen a lot). I'd like to see these used in retail though as the assets they'd be replacing are definitely in need of an update.

I think they sent out a survey last year as well, which is at least an indication of intent.

[Cheezits]

-11.0: New Content for Retail, whatever it may be
-Cataclysm Classic: Seemingly confirmed through datamining

-1.15: Classic+? Wrath but with funny shenanigans?

I don't know how they can juggle three of these with a smaller audience, UNLESS they are making WOW free to play (honestly possible) and/or on Gamepass.

[Marlamin]

-11.0: New Content for Retail, whatever it may be
-Cataclysm Classic: Seemingly confirmed through datamining

-1.15: Classic+? Wrath but with funny shenanigans?

I don't know how they can juggle three of these with a smaller audience, UNLESS they are making WOW free to play (honestly possible) and/or on Gamepass.

Something for Wrath would be on the 3.x branch and calling Cata Classic seemingly confirmed through datamining is quite the stretch as of right now.

[Cheezits]

Something for Wrath would be on the 3.x branch and calling Cata Classic seemingly confirmed through datamining is quite the stretch as of right now.

My mention of Wrath is because you said that the flying mount tag for Outland and Northrend was removed. If those mounts are around, and you can fly in Classic, then wouldn't Northrend be accessible?

Nevermind, misread.