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

[CasualFilth]

I am 100% with you! I remember reading a "leak," prior to Dragonflight's announcement, about a "Dragon Isles continent that was "floating in the air."" Would be so cool!

Another question: How should Dragonflight transition into 11.0 (obviously, without us knowing what 11.0 is, yet)? As in, how should the current narrative/story take us to 11.0?

I'd rather have a 10.3 and wrap up with Iridikron and all story threads of DF to be finished within the expansion - I'm a bit tired of the cosmic stuff/mystery boxes, would love a more straight forward approach to expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

If next expansion is indeed Avaloren with Khaz Algar featured then I imagine something like this:

- A zone based on Camelot. Forests, meadows, hamlets etc. Basically typical western fantasy. I also expect a large city similar to Suramar to dominate the zone.
- A dark swamp zone, less like Nazmir. Moreso like Velen in The Witcher, Dark Crystal, Neverending story. Very witchy, lots of fantastical evil creatures.
- A zone similar to the Scottish Highlands. Lochs and lakes, crags, valleys, gorges etc.
- Khaz Algar which could be anything from a craggy, ravine like zone with the Algarian cities and settlements littered within fissures and ravines as well as some partial underground areas. Or it could also be a a dark, evil land filled with heretics and Avaloren’s heretics that is similar to places such as Mordor or your typical evil controlled areas in a Disney film.

Sounds like Middle Earth to me!

[Santandame]

Give me cottagecore England with sunset colours, light stone ruins, misty forests and weeping willows and I'm sold.

Yeah I pretty much expect this in my Camelot style zone above but Farhad has put it much better than I.

I do genuinely believe we’re getting a very typically stereotypical western fantasy expansion this time round because of the Shadowlands criticism which I believe Blizz will think a lot of that is in regards to setting.

Uldaz could very well be the capital of Avaloren and the inspiration for the WoW version of Camelot. No Titan keepers or Titan forged around but instead repurposed and colonised by the locals.

[Kiria]

Tetley's for me (I'm such a scrub) and extra sausages <3

Eww Tetley's but each to their own, I wish we could get some nice Richmond sausages here, it's the only thing I miss about England.

Oh I just realised Tetley's wasnt bad, I was thinking of Typhoon, now thats a horrible teabag x.x

[CasualFilth]

Eww Tetley's but each to their own, I wish we could get some nice Richmond sausages here, it's the only thing I miss about England.

Oh I just realised Tetley's wasnt bad, I was thinking of Typhoon, now thats a horrible teabag x.x

Oh no, Typhoon is straight up poo water D:

[Raetary]

Alternatively, i'd love a classical dark, dense, wet and dangerous bog swamp, with large withered trees, covered in fungi and moss.
Maybe with a Baba Yaga figure ruling over the place and other major slavic influences. (could even bring back the Drust for that)

Think Crookback bog or a the swamp in ATLA.

Spoiler: 

I know Dustwallow and Swamp of Sorrows exist, but those are old and outdated.
Nazmir was a tropical swamp, so it didn't scratch the itch at all.

[Fahrad Wagner]

No sunset colours but Gilneas is kind of WoW's England! :P

A different flavour of England, like Yorkshire county, or the Cotswolds. It doesn't have to be about rainy grey sad London Victorian England, Gilneas covers that bit already indeed!

[Ersula]

That's too true!

If I had to propose an underdark-style expansion based on things what we've heard before I guess I would think about what the Titans would be doing underground in the first place. What's the most interesting is Avaloren is supposedly settled by the Titans & Keepers, but the Titan-Forged promptly rebelled against them. So their modern-day culture could be anything. Plus they don't have to be worried about ripping off the Forgotten Realms underdark because the race most associated with that location is the Drow, which we already have two analogs of, both located somewhere else.

Khaz Algar: A race of Dwarves formed a gigantic, technologically advanced city that is powered by the chemical reactions from powerful fungus. A vertical city hub with lots of elevators.
Bisporus Mines: A series of deep tunnels where the Algarians harvest crystals & fungus, with the labor of a servile Mushroom people.
The Dead Trench: A deep crevasse that at one point housed the tail-end of C'thun's body. During this period the Algarians were enslaved by C'thun & Aqir but since its (from their perspective) unexplained destruction, it is a source of incomprehensible ruins & archeological study.
Orheen's Bane: A thick woodland of giant, coiled thorns & fearsome beasts, protected by a race of druidic & mystical kobolds.
Asgock:A brutal desert created by shifting plates crushing crystals into a fine sand. Besides strange magic reations by the crystals that absorbed magic from Azeroth's leylines, the region is ruled over by Turocs (Murlocs that have lost their aquatic qualities.)

[Hitei]

A different flavour of England, like Yorkshire county, or the Cotswolds. It doesn't have to be about rainy grey sad London Victorian England, Gilneas covers that bit already indeed!

Isn't Stormsong pretty close to that?

[CasualFilth]

Isn't Stormsong pretty close to that?

It could be, but Stormsong is very Central Europe-like. Reminds me of the Netherlands a bit.

[Ebonn]

Whoever posted the pic of the floating islands, that looks beautiful and I would love to explore that! A city hidden in the sky, traversing bridges and making leaps. Sounds fun!

I also would love more underwater exploration like Vashjir and underground stuff, realizing not everyone is on board lol. I did NOT like Zaralek, but I think there are plenty of other ways to be underground. I’m thinking dwarves or something new architecture.

I often imagine, hearing that there’s supposed to be some sort of “fissure” out there, there would be this dwarves city built into a collapsed cavern/chasm. I’m thinking like that dark cliff space with the minders in Howling Fjord, by that human settlement in the west. Or, in grizzly hills, the open air underground cavern the iron dwarves had built deep into. That would be a LOT more dynamic and interesting than flat zones, or zaralek style crap lol

[Catastrophy349]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

[CasualFilth]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

I think 'snippets of leaks' are healthy for hype, does well with marketing and create discussions both in- and outside the game.

[Ersula]

A different flavour of England, like Yorkshire county, or the Cotswolds. It doesn't have to be about rainy grey sad London Victorian England, Gilneas covers that bit already indeed!

If Khaz Algar is this entirely new region, I think that means they're not doing a world revamp in 11.0 but based on Ion's comments, they're instead planning that for 12.0 instead so that's going to include a lot of traditional tolkienesque vistas (As in, England-land). So I think the last thing we're going to get right now is more zones based on England.

Considering so much of the Titans are based on Albion/Celtic/Norse mythos, I think Avaloren is only eluding it to be very Titan-themed, not actual England.

[Kiria]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

I'd like to know more so I can decide whether I want to play it or not tbh from whats been leaked so far, I am severely not impressed and my hype has completely waned.

[Hitei]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

The Alex and Bolvar ones were pretty enjoyable, since they didn't really spoil the actual intricacies of what features/zones/etc. we were getting. Just enough to really encourage more discussion and theorizing.

[Sondrelk]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

Hard to say. The current leak is edging on too much information, so not sure what other leaks could come out that wouldn't confirm anything. Next expansion doesn't strike me as one where the cinematic is likely to be important.

Maybe something regarding new systems or zones, though those very obviously run the risk of deflating hype.

A perfect leak I could think of would be if housing is coming, and we got a press kit image of placing assets from an old expansion or something. Or a world revamp and we get hints of Stratholme being explorable.

[Hitei]

I'd like to know more so I can decide whether I want to play it or not tbh from whats been leaked so far, I am severely not impressed and my hype has completely waned.

That's super silly. Why would you need to decide whether you want to play it or not before it's even announced? Especially when there's usually 6-12 months after it's announced before it actually releases, and you have the entire beta cycle to see what is in it? Announcement spoilers don't help there at all.

[Ferlion]

Do you think people would prefer a "spoiler-free" lead up to Blizzcon (minus what has already "leaked"), or do people enjoy "snippets of leaks" such as more recent examples (Alexstrasza CGI, Dragonflight name, Bolvar CGI, Shadowlands name, etc.)?

I think... there is a tease and a reveal leak.

We are sitting firmly on a tease, because despite everything we don't know what it is.

But I think thats hanging on by a thread.

[Sondrelk]

The Alex and Bolvar ones were pretty enjoyable, since they didn't really spoil the actual intricacies of what features/zones/etc. we were getting. Just enough to really encourage more discussion and theorizing.

The line between tantalizing info and spoilers can be quite vague. Even more so when you compound several leaks on top of each other.

[Catastrophy349]

Well, the "Algarian Stormrider" info has certainly had a response, hasn't it?

- - - Updated - - -

To me, personally, context/philosophy beats everything else. For example, if a name/image "leaked" early (and it wasn't appealing or interesting to me), that wouldn't outright "disqualify" the entire expansion (to me). For all I know, once there is more context and a philosophical explanation for said "name/image," my mind could be completely changed (potentially in the direction of "YES" versus "this sucks").