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

[Valysar]

We'll soon have the virtual ticket up I suppose, for example, in 2019 it was up on October 1st (November 1& 2)

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I mean the digital ticket has been far far cheaper than actually going and it has been around for ages. They still sold out every time and fast before.

Yeah, but free and cheaper always make a difference also like many people mentioned, times changed since last blizzcon.
@Ersula used the correct word i was looking for "Apprehensive" when it comes to the mood of the community about upcoming stuff.

[Ersula]

I been tracking this for a while now - Going to be in Blizzcon this year(first one also) I am expecting either an awesome non-crowded con experience or a complete lack luster experience. No in-between. We will have to see how long they stretch this out. Hopefully the lack of tickets sold causes them to drop the in-person events/schedule sooner to drive hype/ticket sales. Maybe show up what the physical goodie bags are which might include some hints.

I think they will have expected this after 1.) starting again after Covid, 2.) A period of extremely bad press in the same amount of time.

I hope their reaction is to put on an extremely good show to give people reason to come in the future.

[Sondrelk]

I really don't think this is due to bad will.

I know of at least one person who goes every year who just can't justify spending the money this year, despite really wanting to go. It's an untested formula, much of it is going to be free, there is still technically the risk of getting sick, and that much money just isn't something people can drop as readily.

I imagine some of it might also be that we have not had an in-person Blizzcon for a while. Some people probably realized they got just as good a deal sitting back home with a good dinner, rather than spending large amounts on being stuck inside a convention hall.

[Skildar]

I was very interested in going to blizzcon soon after legion announcement but I was still finishing college and couldn't afford it. It then became less and less interesting type of gathering to me.

From my point of view this has become an event tailored around streamers and video makers to socialize with devs. If you don't plan on going there with friends, it feels like you will struggle having a good time. And for the price of the ticket, it feels bad to have such anticipation. I might be very wrong about the atmosphere but we rarely get anything honest and genuine from blizzard and video makers when it comes to what happens at the blizzcon

[Sondrelk]

Might be a hot take but I get the feeling that allied races are internally viewed as a BfA feature and aren't returning. But I also believe the Broken tease is like the 80th one we've gotten this expansion and only a few of those are going to be followed up in 11.0, with the rest being an IOU for 2-4 years down the line or just forgotten about.

I had a thought couple days back, and wondered whether 11.0 will attempt to give old features another go if they were seen positively at the time.
Class focus from Legion, and ARs from BfA are the obvious ones. But other stuff like trying to do Garrisons correctly, bringing back a single legendary like the MoP cloak or WoD ring.
Not sure what would be worth focusing on from previous expansions before then, but who knows.

[Ferlion]

I imagine some of it might also be that we have not had an in-person Blizzcon for a while. Some people probably realized they got just as good a deal sitting back home with a good dinner, rather than spending large amounts on being stuck inside a convention hall.

For sure. Can grab a Tomahawk steak from Walmart for 30 bucks, throw it on the smoker/oven/stove and have a hell of an experience for Blizzcon, in a nice air conditioned space set to your liking, lounging in your La-Z-boy office chair, put your feet up and just soak in the Blizzcon. Complete with alcohol of choice.

If anything, people are a distraction when you can get a better experience at home.

[Sondrelk]

By the way, I used DALL-E's new image creator AI to see if I could get something similar to the Stormbreak artwork. Here's what I put in-

"world of warcraft artwork showing a dwarf with hammer riding a gryphon in a lightning storm"

Here are the images I got.

https://www.bing.com/images/create/w...P&mode=overlay


AI is definitely getting better, but I'm unsure if you could really nail the Warcraft style and posing of that supposed artwork solely through AI.

Small flaws are what you use the horrible quality of the image for.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Assuming Tyr's story turns out in a way where he ends up our ally, it would indeed be the perfect time to have some clan of Vrykul sympathetic to Tyr's cause (and the Vrykul he saved) join us shortly after.

I think this scenario would be interesting and fitting.

I know there are a some people that want to villain bat Tyr because of Vyranoth, but i hope this won't actually happen.. Especially with now Tyr's guard reassembled.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I'm hoping the takeaway is that the Blizzard fanbase is less interested in paying for big reveals and more interested in open communication about what's next for the game.

Without a new Game Director who can either delegate or show interest in the necessity of communication in the running of a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

I think this is not going to happen at all, current Team has showcased that they prefer the BFA style strict interviews with restrictions on questions + Stay in the Bunker and say nothing strategy again. We've regressed back to the worst era of communication again and well this Blizzcon has a air of suspicion that they will backstab the community with poor business decisions at their premier marketing event in front of their core audience in a live setting, so yeah I don't think they will rethink this.

[flan1337]

I think they will have expected this after 1.) starting again after Covid, 2.) A period of extremely bad press in the same amount of time.

I hope their reaction is to put on an extremely good show to give people reason to come in the future.

Agree - they need the good PR. I don't there ever been a time besides around WoD that the sentiment for blizzard has been so low. There is also a big out cry I seen for people not liking Blizzcon is a dry event. Luckily I don't really drink so I could care less - hopefully they still have some fun moctails.

I'm hoping the takeaway is that the Blizzard fanbase is less interested in paying for big reveals and more interested in open communication about what's next for the game.

I think open communication is going to be critical during this blizzcon. No idea if they will do a QnA again which is a trademark for Blizzcon ,but I want a WoW deep-drive + QnA. Let me understand what are we doing with WoW and what is the teams plans going forward because while I love dragonflight the fact we have 5 public events makes absolutely no sense.

[Sondrelk]

Yeah, but free and cheaper always make a difference also like many people mentioned, times changed since last blizzcon.
@Ersula used the correct word i was looking for "Apprehensive" when it comes to the mood of the community about upcoming stuff.

I would even say that apprehensive is a bit of a stretch. I think it's more correct to say that the playerbase has no reason to be all that excited, except for a world revamp. And obviously, those that don't care about a world revamp won't have anything specific to be excited for either.

It's not even that the lore is so boring, it's that the lore is so drained. Khaz'algar could be everything everyone has ever hoped for, but noone would have any idea beforehand what it could actually be.
Even Dragon Isles was exciting because Dragons were a known quantity. You could absolutely juice the concept of Dragons flying around doing cool shit. Bronze having the time travel stuff, Green with the Emerald Dream, Black with Neltharion and his neverending supply of hidden laboratories.
The only constant thing people could expect from backside of Azeroth is that it's a new place with new zones.

[Ersula]

I had a thought couple days back, and wondered whether 11.0 will attempt to give old features another go if they were seen positively at the time.
Class focus from Legion, and ARs from BfA are the obvious ones. But other stuff like trying to do Garrisons correctly, bringing back a single legendary like the MoP cloak or WoD ring.
Not sure what would be worth focusing on from previous expansions before then, but who knows.

That is what I'd describe as World of Warcraft's biggest problem, as it relates to each patch rendering existing world content irrelevant: When there are any problems with how the playerbase reacts to a new feature, they just make the feature completely irrelevant as soon as possible, rather than fixing it.

People complained about Torghast, warfronts & Island expeditions at first but they were all fun on some level. I don't know why they would drop the format entirely. I know they want to push new features for each expansion but its so stupid that the only new gameplay feature they ever tried to push into the following expansions was Work Orders from the Garrison (besides Mythic+ which was a complete success)

[milkmustache]

I would even say that apprehensive is a bit of a stretch. I think it's more correct to say that the playerbase has no reason to be all that excited, except for a world revamp. And obviously, those that don't care about a world revamp won't have anything specific to be excited for either.

I think this is what makes the 11.0 announcement so particularly important, and why people latched onto the world revamp idea. I think even though Dragonflight was an improvement over Shadowlands, it's not enough of one to make 11.0 an instant buy for a lot of people. With the anniversary being here, people expect a knockout expansion, but I don't think people expect Blizzard's capability of pulling it off.

[SloidVoid]

How long do I have to wait until we finally get the Light vs. Void expansion.
I've been wanting this since Legion...

[Sondrelk]

That is what I'd describe as World of Warcraft's biggest problem, as it relates to each patch rendering existing world content irrelevant: When there are any problems with how the playerbase reacts to a new feature, they just make the feature completely irrelevant as soon as possible, rather than fixing it.

People complained about Torghast, warfronts & Island expeditions at first but they were all fun on some level. I don't know why they would drop the format entirely. I know they want to push new features for each expansion but its so stupid that the only new gameplay feature they ever tried to push into the following expansions was Work Orders from the Garrison (besides Mythic+ which was a complete success)

Some of those features were so beyond repair that I can compeltely see why they were scrapped. Warfronts especially needed a complete rethink of everything but the basic concept to work properly.
Islands could have been reworked more easily by removing the opposite faction, but if you did that then the rest of the concept would be horribly bland without something to replace it.
Torghast is definitely the idea that was the closest to working. At least mechanically. The problem there was the setting I think, and you would need to design completely new tilesets and enemies to get away from it.

Personally I think I would have gone for combining Torghast and Islands. All the fun of crazy Torghast builds, and all the excitement of island exploration. All it would really need after that is more stuff to do on the Islands.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

Dragonflights biggest problem is because of the perceived issues (Boring, nothing going on, no grind) that Blizzard can make some really absolutely bizarre decisions and then just reject feedback about it and then we're stuck with a half functioning expansion again.

[Zers Editor]

I think this scenario would be interesting and fitting.

I know there are a some people that want to villain bat Tyr because of Vyranoth, but i hope this won't actually happen.. Especially with now Tyr's guard reassembled.

They will likely be used to make him complacent with the Alexstrasza's Titan-free stance. It stopped being about him helping restore the Aspects' powers the moment Travard (and therefore the Guard) entered the plot. Nozdormu continues to help only because he was closer with Tyr as a friend.

[Cherry123]

The last cringecone were full of soy-boys and the feeling of gonorrhea in the colon. Chris Metzen alone can't save Blizzcon.

When a super fat woman will tell me for an hour about how great they love each other in the company and their work is super and only 2 minutes of real content

And you wonder why people don't want to go there for that kind of money?

The whole era of cool bro-clubs is over.

[vintage79]

Ogres