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

[Houle]

The RTS games set up the foundation, sure, but it was mostly on Azeroth. The overall Cosmic setting, and much of its inner workings was the result of WoW however.

As for the role of the Titans compared to the First Ones...no? Even in the old lore, the Titans being called "the creators" was only ever utilized by beings related to them, not by the Old Gods or their minions (This is pre-chronicle, mind you). Sure, they may have always "seeded the world" and they may be the progenitors to most races on Azeroth (And the physical multiverse itself), but they were never fundamentally akin to the First Ones, whose roles range far above anything the Titans could ever provide to the universe.

"Before Chronicles and and "modern" lore it was the Titans, now its the First Ones. Only difference is that the First Ones are on a much larger scale, which brings me back to the point of them copying the old stuff but making it "bigger and better" (which its actually not)."

To further what I said above, this statement makes no sense when you realize that even in the old lore, the Universe was never created by the Titans, and the arguments that the Titans "created Azeroth" were debatable at best (Especially with what Executus says, as well as that lore book which is ripped from the Warcraft 3 manual). So no, the Titans didn't create everything as knew it prior to the FIrst Ones addition, and although much of Azeroth was forged from the Titans influence, it ultimately existed far before even they came across it, and this also applies to the Cosmos itself by extension.

As for the First Ones, everything that was implied/explored about them straight up states they made it all. That they are the reason the Cosmos is what it is today, that they are the ones who put these forces into motion, that they are the ones who balanced their forces with their grand design, they made the Cosmic Pattern which determines how these forces interact, they made all of reality and encompass everything and nothing through thought alone.

They are clearly not the same, despite (admittedly) some similarities.


"Not to the point it is after SL. Not even close. And you know it."

Sure, you could definitely argue this, but considering the Afterlife is infinite, and many afterlives are still unknown to us...yeah...I think we'll be just fine.

I think you dont really get my point, bc you basically just proved it.

Yes, the titans back then were "merely" these uber-powerful aliens who ordered Azeroth and the rest of the universe to their liking, while the First Ones now created the entire universe to their liking - but their role in the mythology is the same. Their purpose in the mythology is to be the the unknowable, unreachable top-tier beings, who are far above everything else, and who vanished ages ago.
They have the same purpose in the overall narrative structure. Even if they arent the exact same thing on paper (altho they have similarities there as well), they fulfill the same function for the story, from the perspective of the storyteller.
Its really not that hard of a concept to grasp my dude.

[Marlamin]

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?

Those mount changes are from 3.4.3 Classic, not the 1.1x branch.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Would be really funny if 1.15 was just Cataclysm Classic but Blizzard made it 1.15 solely to fuck with every Classic player.

[Ersula]

Those mount changes are from 3.4.3 Classic, not the 1.1x branch.

I think you're talking about different things at this point. Cheezits is suggesting more content for Vanilla Classic AND the mount change on wotlk classic is a change that happened for Cataclysm originally, as in suggesting the existence of Cataclysm classic.

[Marlamin]

Would be really funny if 1.15 was just Cataclysm Classic but Blizzard made it 1.15 solely to fuck with every Classic player.

Them fucking around with version names on encrypted branches is rare but not out of the question so it could end up being a patch 4.4, but they could as well have just called it 96.0 as they do with one of the 'expansion-less' internal clients which would've caused much less speculation/rumors.

I think you're talking about different things at this point. Cheezits is suggesting more content for Vanilla Classic AND the mount change on wotlk classic is a change that happened for Cataclysm originally, as in suggesting the existence of Cataclysm classic.

Yep, I'm suggesting the same with 1.15 but I'd argue the 3.4.3 mount changes are less suspicious given the fact they've started merging Retail's mount system into 3.4.3 but it could be indicative of Cata Classic, sure, but wouldn't go as far as 'seemingly confirmed through datamining'.

[Makorus]

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?

What we know is that "early Dragonflight sales have not reached the level of the prior expansion". To note is the word "expansion" rather than expansions.

Shadowlands sold 3.8 Million on launch, and BFA sold 3.4 Million. So, I would be surprised if it was less than 3 Million for DF.

Subscriber retention is also higher than previous expansions.

Saying that Retail is a "dead end" is batshit insane. Any other MMO can wish to even get a third of those sales, and that's following the worst received expansions that made a majority of the player base switch to another MMO.

[Murlocos]

I think 1.15 will end up being SoM 2, a set of fresh servers that likely will have larger and more comprehensive changes than SoM did but ultimately still a refresh of vanilla. It'd be analogous to the gradual increase in changes they've been making with TBC and Wrath.

If I was a Classic+ believer/hoper, I think the number one thing I'd be checking for is if the Classic team was hiring more artists.

[Marlamin]

If I was a Classic+ believer/hoper, I think the number one thing I'd be checking for is if the Classic team was hiring more artists.

Artists have historically been shared between teams as was said in a Brian Birmingham interview at some point, but there have been positions for designers/programmers that have been largely filled for a while as well as some job descriptions with somewhat suspicious mentions of expansions for Classic, but that could just be a copy paste error from retail job descriptions.

[Ersula]

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?

Are you saying the investor's report is a lie? Because that would be a felony.

Do you people think Retail is some sort of ghost town? People are playing it. People bought it.

And honestly it really doesn't seem like more people are playing classic, from a player's perspective. The general consensus is that while a lot of people were apprehensive to Dragonflight because of Shadowlands, Dragonflight's player retention is a lot better than Shadowlands and wotlk classic.

Saying that Retail is a "dead end" is batshit insane. Any other MMO can wish to even get a third of those sales, and that's following the worst received expansions that made a majority of the player base switch to another MMO.

I don't know if its copium or classic has created this natural echo chamber but classic players seem to think retail is dead, and its not. Its a lot more active than pre-ICC drought wrath. But any discussion with classic players is "retail is dead. Classic should get new expansions" but that's coming from a lot of people who haven't even tried Dragonflight. I play both & am definitely enjoying Dragonflight more.

Turns out a lot of the appeal of classic was just nostalgia after all.

[Cheezits]

Have they said whether or not Amirdrassil raid will be Week One? Not that I think they really care about how that story ends, seeing as the related files aren't even encrypted, but I am wondering if they will spoil the tree's new model in the 11.0 reveal. I think it will pop into being when you clear the raid, similar to Silithus after you beat Argus.

[Makorus]

Have they said whether or not Amirdrassil raid will be Week One? Not that I think they really care about how that story ends, seeing as the related files aren't even encrypted, but I am wondering if they will spoil the tree's new model in the 11.0 reveal. I think it will pop into being when you clear the raid, similar to Silithus after you beat Argus.

Season probably starts a week after patch release date like for the last few raids.

[Jastall]

I think 1.15 will end up being SoM 2, a set of fresh servers that likely will have larger and more comprehensive changes than SoM did but ultimately still a refresh of vanilla. It'd be analogous to the gradual increase in changes they've been making with TBC and Wrath.

If I was a Classic+ believer/hoper, I think the number one thing I'd be checking for is if the Classic team was hiring more artists.

They could perhaps be testing the waters with something like a new dungeon, or a similar enough small content drop that isn't very expensive to make but that they can attach to another seasonal content ala SoM to drive up hype. But that's the most I expect. Anything close to expansion-scale content for Classic seems like a total pie in the sky dream to me, but hey I've been wrong before.

And Cata Classic seems inevitable as well, albeit it may be the Classic expansion with the most changes to date considering its controversial aspects.

[Mysticdoll]

On the topic of a world revamp (for retail) I’ve seen alot of people say wow is in maintenance mode so we wont get a revamp but in my mind wouldn’t graphicly updating ek, Kalimdor and mabye parts of northrend be the perfect way to set up maintenance mode, we would have 10 continents/realms/islands to have storylines set in (outlands excluded because its a little too dated, an draenor is basically modern out-lands anyway. plus lore wise its falling apart an theres a mass exodus).

each season could be 4 classic-cata dungeon’s revamped with 4 mop-df dungeons, then a raid an story campaign all based on one theme just using existing instances and zones think very patch 8.3 but with alot more zones to work with

Exsample we could have a necromancy patch with a story campaign spanning all the scourge expansion zones with 4 vanilla/wrath scourge dungeons revamped such as drak tharon keep, pit of saron an the stratholme dungeons then the other 4 dungeons could be shadowmoon burial grounds, maw of souls, waycrest manner and the necrotic wake, an obviously a new raid to go with the season

Less man power way of making a thematically an graphically consistent season/patch

[pacotaco]

where does it come from?

The epilogue of Secrets of Azeorth:

It is unsettling to see. After all, the Burning Legion has threatened Azeroth time and time again.
That said, we believe this text predates the time when Sargeras ruled over the demons of the Burning Legion. Though the exact origin has yet to be discovered.

https://www.wowhead.com/es/news/secr...t-chest-335076

[Ersula]

They could perhaps be testing the waters with something like a new dungeon, or a similar enough small content drop that isn't very expensive to make but that they can attach to another seasonal content ala SoM to drive up hype. But that's the most I expect. Anything close to expansion-scale content for Classic seems like a total pie in the sky dream to me, but hey I've been wrong before.

And Cata Classic seems inevitable as well, albeit it may be the Classic expansion with the most changes to date considering its controversial aspects.

Because of Classic progressing at the same rate as retail, once they hit an expansion that was not popular, the playerbase is going to become a huge problem. Unpopular expansions have no classic appeal. I forsee two possible solutions to this:

1.) Classic Realms become Progression Realms: They rotate through major content tiers, but at an accelerated rate, until the realm becomes a normal retail realm. More loot drops & Experience rates are hugely inflated allowing players to get through the content faster. They seemed to be playing with this idea when they introduced Season of Mastery.

2.) Classic+: Not a new expansion but new content. The realms progress at the same rate, parallel with retail. But they introduce bits of new content, focusing on the expansions that were not received positively: They introduce a new raid tier between BRF and HFC during WoD Classic, They add a new warfront during BFA, etc. This turns an expansion people don't want to try into an expansion they do.

I'm trying to meet the classic+ theorists halfway but I got the idea that it wouldnt be a waste of production time to complete content they left unfinished, like the Shattrath Raid in WoD. Or Turning Battle For Ardenweald into a Raid. Maybe even the Drakkari raid in Wotlk.

[Murlocos]

Artists have historically been shared between teams as was said in a Brian Birmingham interview at some point, but there have been positions for designers/programmers that have been largely filled for a while as well as some job descriptions with somewhat suspicious mentions of expansions for Classic, but that could just be a copy paste error from retail job descriptions.

I wonder if that approach will continue to work if Classic does end up needing a full-scale content pipeline of its own though, at least without impacting retail. To be fair, I'm basing that off comparison to how Old School Runescape was handled, where they were bottlenecked by a lack of artists when they first committed to new content creation and were heavily reliant on existing asset reuse for the first year or so.

And Cata Classic seems inevitable as well, albeit it may be the Classic expansion with the most changes to date considering its controversial aspects.

The slightly truncated patch cycle alone will probably help a fair amount by itself. Getting to 4.1 and Firelands faster and only letting Dragon Soul linger for a few months. I imagine 4.2 is going to be given the longest time in the sun similar to how Ulduar in Wrath Classic lasted longer than the original.

[Shadowferal]

Are you saying the investor's report is a lie? Because that would be a felony.

You posted:

The Quarterly Investors' call. They haven't given DF's exact numbers but every recent expansion has sold between 3 and 4 million copies.

And considering the current playerbase cancels their respective subs after a month or two..o wait, you don't really expect anyone to believe that most stay subbed year around? Because that ship sailed years ago. Along with the millions of subscribers that Blizz used to publicly boast of. Monthly revenue they don't receive anymore.

Subscriber retention is also higher than previous expansions.

That doesn't say anything. You have players that pay for a month or so, cancel sub, and return. Whether that means 50% or 80% that's monthly revenue that dips and steadies. anymore.

Saying that Retail is a "dead end" is batshit insane. Any other MMO can wish to even get a third of those sales, and that's following the worst received expansions that made a majority of the player base switch to another MMO.

But this isn't about other MMOs. This is about an MMO that once bragged loud and proud of 12 million subscribers.

[Ersula]

And considering the current playerbase cancels their respective subs after a month or two..o wait, you don't really expect anyone to believe that most stay subbed year around? Because that ship sailed years ago. Along with the millions of subscribers that Blizz used to publicly boast of. Monthly revenue they don't receive anymore. That doesn't say anything. You have players that pay for a month or so, cancel sub, and return. Whether that means 50% or 80% that's monthly revenue that dips and steadies. anymore. But this isn't about other MMOs. This is about an MMO that once bragged loud and proud of 12 million subscribers.

You were asking about copies of Dragonflight sold. And even then we know subscriber retention is good. Copies sold & subscriber retention are different things. You seem to be confused about what these terms mean. WoW still makes way more money than any other MMORPG & its not purely because of classic. If you logged into Retail once & a while you would know this.

[Shadowferal]

You were asking about copies of Dragonflight sold. And even then we know subscriber retention is good.

None of which means anything rosy. (Retention of the diehards that come and go is neaningless.)

Copies sold & subscriber retention are different things. You seem to be confused about what these terms mean. WoW still makes way more money than any other MMORPG & its not purely because of classic.

Again, comparison to other MMOs isn't meaningful. Compare WoW today to the business they once had.
...quite the fall.

[Makorus]

You posted:
And considering the current playerbase cancels their respective subs after a month or two..o wait, you don't really expect anyone to believe that most stay subbed year around? Because that ship sailed years ago. Along with the millions of subscribers that Blizz used to publicly boast of. Monthly revenue they don't receive anymore. That doesn't say anything. You have players that pay for a month or so, cancel sub, and return. Whether that means 50% or 80% that's monthly revenue that dips and steadies. anymore. But this isn't about other MMOs. This is about an MMO that once bragged loud and proud of 12 million subscribers.

Once again, please enlighten me:

In what world is Retail WoW a dead end?

You are arguing a point that no one else, which is that WoW has less players than it used to have, which is correct, but what's your argument?