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

[Teriz]

Nope, it’s an elemental expansion.

Nah. The actual elemental expansion is happening in 11.0.

[Ersula]

So is this a Titan expansion since the aspects are using order magic from the Titans? Titans are Titans right?

Iridikron is a dragon made of literal rocks. Are you saying he is less of an elemental than Neptulon, who seems to be some sort of fucked up fishman hybrid?

The "prediction" graph (which I don't think they'd be following anymore. In fact they'd be actively going against it) considered Cataclysm's primary motifs to be Dragons & Elemental. Wotlk also had dragons but not as much as Cataclysm.

Maybe the Elements will be heavily featured in 11.0 if they're not the antagonists. Because even you can concede that having Elemental villains in the next expansion, after the villains of Dragonflight represented the 4 classical elements (not even suggestively, they're identified that way by the characters in the story) would feel like one gigantic rerun. It's not even the main antagonists that are suggestively elemental: About 80% of the raid bosses this expansion are or use elemental powers in their fights.

Vault of the Incarnates: The Bosses are 2 Dragons, 1 Shaman, 7 Elementals and an Ice Spider
Aberrus: The Bosses are 7 Dragons and 4 Elementals
Eye of Ysera: The Bosses are a Dragon, 3 Elementals, 6 Druids, and 2 Tree Spirits (most of which being transformed by fire)

Can you imagine if the next expansion is MORE ELEMENTALS?? Plus, I just remembered the Dragonflight pre-patch event: Elemental invasions, not dragon invasions.

[ro9ue]

Except the anniversary isn't this year: It's next year. The year the expansion would actually come out. Making this attraction ultra conspicuous.

Hmm... true true.

[Woggmer]

Funny thing is too that we even fight an elemental lord this xpac and it’s still not enough.

It was also revealed that said Fire Lord gets his energy and power siphoned by the insane elemental fire dragon. So the elemental lords and the incarnates aren't exactly allies to each other.

Meanwhile Neptulon is busy trying to hunt down Azshara, Thunderaan is trying to maintain control, and Therazane is just sitting in the bowels of the earth; not giving a sh*t of whats going on upstairs....

Come to think of it, we don't even know how Therazane's daughter, Theradras, was corrupted and turned evil by the Old Gods... It was just an excuse reason to fight her.

If it turned out that it wasn't the Old Gods.. but whatever void like corruption that is effected her and what is effecting Iridikron to make him want to go after the Titans.

[Scyth]

For me DF is just as much an Elemental expansion as it is a Dragon one. But both have always been pretty closely connected, no?
Wouldn't be surprised if next xpac focuses more on the Elemental lords themselves as well but probably won't be the main story.

[Carcimomim]

Kind of a bold move to create a race of dragonkin with magic powers for a race class combo in an elemental expansion instead of an elemental-themed one. But hey I guess y'gotta roll the dice I suppose.

[Merryck]

Lame debate.

[MCMLXXXII]

Kind of a bold move to create a race of dragonkin with magic powers for a race class combo in an elemental expansion instead of an elemental-themed one. But hey I guess y'gotta roll the dice I suppose.

Great idea, let's call that class Shaman.

[prwraith]

This thread is not intended for endless and largely circular debates about points of Warcraft lore - it's to discuss future Dragonflight and WoW patches or expansions. If you have a topic of lore you want to discuss more thoroughly, then use the Lore subforum devoted to conversations of those types. So let's drop the rolling back-and-forth about BFA and Zul and focus instead on upcoming material for Dragonflight and further.

This thread isn't about the lore of previous expansions such as BfA or Shadowlands, it's about discussing future content patches and expansions. The lore of possible future content would be relevant, but let's keep it on-topic and not keep mining for previous controversy.

The long-winded discussions about body horror, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftian themes aren't really germane to this thread - take it to the Lore forum if you want to discuss the more general or broader themes of storytelling in WoW and let's keep this thread focused on more specific elements of future content patch or expansion material in WoW.

This thread isn't about microtransactions, business practices, and/or marketing demographics. There are plenty of threads already discussing these topics, so please take these topics elsewhere as they're not relevant, and often contribute to derailments.

aka, you will talk about what we want you to talk about, in the way you want us to talk about it or get infracted.

eyeroll.


On topic though, 11.0 can't come soon enough dragonflight really starting to feel like a wasteland

[Ferlion]

A pre-sundered/unsundered Azeroth would be a pretty great expansion

[Swnem]

Or an alternative reading is that the decline of WoW started with WotLK, since that is when the game no longer managed to gain more subscribers than it lost.

I think some of you struggle with the concept of "decline". But it's not the first time i see people making up their own meaning of words in mmo-champ. It ends with me having to link the dictionary and it's quite droll.

I get it. Some of you have lofty ambitions of what an expansion can be. Good luck, is all i can say.
But, you know. I won't be surprised if it doesn't happen.

[Mecheon]

Yes, in an expansion whose theme is one set of dragons trying to undo the work of the titans and seeking revenge against another set of dragons who embraced said titans' powers.

I'd imagine an elemental expansion actually involving Azeroth's elements. Not an evil dragon using elemental power to burn stuff.

If we're not going to get an Old Gods or Emerald Dream expansion due to those being samey and having limited design stuff, then "Elemental" expansion is another no-go because elementals are, kind of boring.. Cata did a good job with 'em and given the themes in this expansion, this is as close as you're going to get

[Ferlion]

What would you even do with that anyway? Night Elf stuff? AU Old God BS? Cause the Legion is defeated.

Bunches and bunches.

If you do a pre-sundered time travel expansion, set it before Azshara really dived into the Well of Eternity, and you can get into ancient things and races, races driven out by Trolls like the Furbolg precursers, and whatever threats that stepped up to justify the original Night Warrior for Night Elves.

This is by far the least interesting version.

An "unsundered" Azeroth, where Azeroth gets healed and restored, you can have plenty of things similar. Old Gods, ancient horrors, crumbling buildings resettled, ancient artifacts of power claimed by nefarious actors, Troll Wars trying to reclaim lands, Ancient Kaldorei hubris looking into other dimensions and dealing with the consequences.

In the War of the Ancients trilogy, there is mention of a city that was reduced to a crater, and nobody really knows why.

You also have stuff like the Barrens, where there is a Titan facility that has some sort of horror in it that we try and lock away. It's also implied there is some sort of Titan facility under Darkshore with the old Aman quests.

Yes, I'd imagine a lot of stuff would include ancient NE ruins, but you can do so much with that. Elementals, Cosmic invasions. Old Gods..

The great thing when dealing with what the Pre sundering NE society is you can lean into so many sci-fi or fantasy tropes of corruption, power, hubris, and danger that you it provides a entry for pretty much any story direction you want.

[flan1337]

Hey if a new x pack gets announced this year at blizzcon - doesn’t that mean no xpack announcement next year?

[Worldshaper]

11.0 will likely have a mix of Void, Elementals, and Dragons. Just like Dragonflight and Cataclysm. But the main antagonists (and perhaps the theme) will probably lean more towards Void.

[ChairmanKaga]

World of Warcraft: Eclipse

- Theme is Light vs. Void
- Azshara main villain. Makes contact with void lords. Xal’atath returns with Iridikron. Plan is to corrupt Sargeras into a dark Titan to kill the other titans.
- Playable Ethereals start out on K’aresh. Zone returns as patch content.
- Avaloren new continent with Titan city Uldaz as capital.
- New feature similar to Torghast but is called Path of the Titans

This is atleast the format of a believable leak. A handful of bullet points not a novel.

[Polybius]

Hey if a new x pack gets announced this year at blizzcon - doesn’t that mean no xpack announcement next year?

Right. DF being short probably warps the mind into thinking there’s an announcement every year, it’s confused me too.

[Ferlion]

Right. DF being short probably warps the mind into thinking there’s an announcement every year, it’s confused me too.

Assuming 10.2 releases this November, we're going to go until May for Season 3. We "might" get a Season 4, which will tide us over until the release of whatever the next expansion is. Which will, yes, technically hit the "Expansion every two years" metric they've been aiming for. There's pretty much no chance of an expansion being announced next year unless they hit us with two more patches in Dragonflight.

Which mind, is absolutely a possibility. I just don't think it's a very large one.

[Worldshaper]

Not to worry.

Expansions are released every two years, with the announcements taking place in the off years.

Dragonflight was most likely a 2022 announcement that slipped into April of the following year, because there was no BlizzCon in 2022.

[Woggmer]

If we're not going to get an Old Gods or Emerald Dream expansion due to those being samey and having limited design stuff, then "Elemental" expansion is another no-go because elementals are, kind of boring.. Cata did a good job with 'em and given the themes in this expansion, this is as close as you're going to get

Cata did an okay job, but now it's completely outdated... We've got different Fire and Wind Lords and Neptulon isn't stuck in the Abyssal Maw fighting Ozumat anymore.

Though the whole point behind why they can't do Old Gods and Emerald Dream expansions.. I've explained this but the Emerald Dream is just nothing but dense jungles which is basically copy-pasting Val'Sharah but in different tints and saying "There's your 4 unique zones" and if they all look the same then it gets boring. Same can be said for Old Gods because then it'll just be Ny'alotha/Ahn'Qiraj copy-pasted but with different bug enemies (I don't know if opinions changed now, but I recall people not liking any of the raids that involved bugs like Ahn'Qiraj or Heart of Fear.)

Elementals, on the other hand, are varied and if they go out of control, it can lead to possible changes in the zones, especially to the zones that were untouched from the Cataclysm's changes... and it doesn't mean EVERY ZONE is effected by Elementals, the elementals are the trigger to the revamp.

This is why people believe in the elemental expansion idea because it can lead to a possible revamp of the old world.