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

[Dismayxz]

's a good compromise, but I'm still gonna say I told you so when there's a spider boss.

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They've served their purpose, it's not like they haven't just 0'd progression trees in previous expansions, even ones that are much more time investment. If they move the gylph system forward in the future it will probably be altered to unlock certain mount customizations or something. Like they are converted to a currency and can be used at a vendor for various vanity things.

Or they just keep the same tree, but add more Glyphs in the new Zones. The Progression is effectively 0'd, if you've done it, you just have the tree. If you've played DF, you can just go ham. If you haven't, you have the option of speeding through the base necessary Glyphs in DF Zones rq. If you haven't done it and are unbothered by a speed impediment, you just collect the new ones as you go.

It's not bad with evergreen systems to expect people to just.. go and do the baseline everyone else has done. But doing so can be made convenient.

[Ersula]

Without the talents and the skills, which you have to unlock by actually questing in the dragon isles.

Also you'll only be able to fly in the dragon isles.

Compare that to them getting a standard mount that they can use anywhere instantly at the moment of purchase.

You're really reaching here. Now its not that they cant dragonride, but that they arent fully leveled up at dragonriding, apparently? Allied races were a pre-purchse perk & they werent even avaliable until 6 weeks later. Plus you seem to forget they wouldn't even be able to use a normal mount in the dragon isles without the pathfinder achievement and that's by design.

By your own logic, the heroic edition mount must be a dragonriding enabled mount in order for people who buy it to even use it in the current content. I personally thought the 30+ hour pathfinder achievement for normal mounts in Dragon Isles requirement was stupid but they are going through with it.

I already proposed old world dragonriding might come with it in which case this whole line of questioning is irrelevant. No real technical reason Kalimdor/EK dragonriding wouldn't come with Northrend, Outland & all the other expansions either.

[Ferlion]

So going back to the Chart (Titan PoV), the Emerald Dream is opposite the Shadowlands. We know the Shadowlands are what they say they are, at least for the purposes of the Chart. But the Emerald Dream having something possibly beyond and having been Ordered or fiddled with by the Titans to some degree, would (as others have speculated) lead one to assume that the Emerald Dream isn't per se the "Lifelands" but rather a tampered-with portion of them or a titan-ordered piece of the Veil separating the Shadowland's counterpart from Reality, that has become this sort of In-between tied to Reality.

Welll.... Thing is, this is actually a bit more complicated than that.

The Emerald Dream is.. fundamentally connected to death. Like, directly. Blizzard has made this pretty clear in a few places, most notable during one of the secrets. You have to, if memory serves, get the power needed to get into shadowlands and you take an eye from the skull of a green dragon.

But there's also a bit even more than that. Thros is kind of an intersection of cosmic powers. It exists as a physical location on Azeroth (or at least the entrance does), is part of the Emerald Dream, but has a path to the Shadowlands into it.

So like, yes. The Emerald Dream IS an ordered part of the realm of life, but I think that there is an active distinction between even an unaltered Emerald Dream and the Lifelands.

If I had to guess, The Emerald Dream (in any form) is akin to the Lifelands the same way that Death Knights on Azeroth travel in a realm of death they call the Shadowlands, but isn't exactly THE Shadowlands.

[Teriz]

You're really reaching here. Now it's not that they cant dragonride, but that they arent fully leveled up at dragonriding, apparently?

1. You can only dragon ride (fully) in the Dragon Isles.
2. You have to unlock dragonriding features in the dragon isles.
3. Your alts won't be able to use the mount until they reach the dragon isles.

Meanwhile;

1. Standard mounts can be fully used anywhere (including the Dragon Isles in 10.2)
2. You don't have to unlock talents and features in the Dragon Isles for full benefit.
3. Your lower-level alts can also use the heroic standard mount anywhere.

Allied races were a pre-purchse perk & they werent even avaliable until 6 weeks later. Plus you seem to forget they wouldn't even be able to use a normal mount in the dragon isles without the pathfinder achievement and that's by design.

Allied races aren't the same situation as this. For example, I pre-ordered Dragonflight and I didn't have access to the Dracthyr for several months afterwards. People expect to wait for new races. Mounts however are something they get access to instantly. And yeah if you skipped dragon flight, you won't be able to fly in the dragon isles. However, your standard mount can be flown everywhere else. That's kind of my point; One reward requires a great deal of questing in DF, they other does not (thus opening a wider pool of potential buyers).

If you skipped dragonflight, or quit mid-expansion, a dragonriding mount probably isn't going to appeal to you. In fact, it might turn you off completely, and that's the OPPOSITE of the goal of a heroic expansion pre-order mount.

I already proposed old world dragonriding might come with it in which case this whole line of questioning is irrelevant. No real technical reason Kalimdor/EK dragonriding wouldn't come with Northrend, Outland & all the other expansions either.

I fully believe that old world dragonriding will come as well, but not in 10.2 when this mount is going to be released. Again this mount will be available in 10.2, and dragonriding is simply not going to change at that level by that point.

[PaladinBash]

All this Elune stuff has reminded me of the Nightsong from BG3. Man she was cool as hell. Why can't they make Yrel like that?

[Dismayxz]

Welll.... Thing is, this is actually a bit more complicated than that.

The Emerald Dream is.. fundamentally connected to death. Like, directly. Blizzard has made this pretty clear in a few places, most notable during one of the secrets. You have to, if memory serves, get the power needed to get into shadowlands and you take an eye from the skull of a green dragon.

But there's also a bit even more than that. Thros is kind of an intersection of cosmic powers. It exists as a physical location on Azeroth (or at least the entrance does), is part of the Emerald Dream, but has a path to the Shadowlands into it.

So like, yes. The Emerald Dream IS an ordered part of the realm of life, but I think that there is an active distinction between even an unaltered Emerald Dream and the Lifelands.

If I had to guess, The Emerald Dream (in any form) is akin to the Lifelands the same way that Death Knights on Azeroth travel in a realm of death they call the Shadowlands, but isn't exactly THE Shadowlands.

Thanks! And yeah I agree. That whole post was something to chew through, trying to just connect pieces and see where it leads. I agree with your assessment, but I think for me it got lost in the thought process somewhere

[Marlamin]

There's a bunch of options Blizz has for making the transition into dynamic flight for new players easier, including just straight up unlocking all the glyphs on accounts with the 11.0 (preorder) license, including them with the boost and/or including a static version of the mount (if the switching system isn't ready for primetime yet).

Either that, or having the heroic mount be the first mount that can switch between both in areas where both types of flying are supported would actually be a nice incentive, maybe the switching could even be a part of the Storm Riding race. Granted, I do think we would have seen a bit of testing around the switching system on 10.2 PTR if that were the case, but it'd be a neat surprise.

[Ersula]

Allied races aren't the same situation as this. For example, I pre-ordered Dragonflight and I didn't have access to the Dracthyr for several months afterwards. People expect to wait for new races. Mounts however are something they get access to instantly. And yeah if you skipped dragon flight, you won't be able to fly in the dragon isles. However, your standard mount can be flown everywhere else. That's kind of my point; One reward requires a great deal of questing in DF, they other does not (thus opening a wider pool of potential buyers).

If you skipped dragonflight, or quit mid-expansion, a dragonriding mount probably isn't going to appeal to you. In fact, it might turn you off completely, and that's the OPPOSITE of the goal of a heroic expansion pre-order mount.

Your argument is that a mount you can't use in the current content is somehow more appealing than a mount you can? You keep using the example of a new player who never played dragonflight as your example because that's the only possible scenario where their first priority is chrome time with a pre-order mount. You know the majority of people pre-ordering will be going for Dragon Isles content.

(Stop saying it takes a while to level up dragonriding. It takes 20 minutes max to get every glyph. The pathfinder achivement by comparison takes weeks.)

[Calfredd]

I believe this is unfortunately another case of posters on this forum latching heavily onto an item with little evidence to support their assertions.

Irony, thy name is Teriz.

[Teriz]

Your argument is that a mount you can't use in the current content is somehow more appealing than a mount you can?

Again, by the time this mount is available you can use it to fly in the Dragon Isles.

You keep using the example of a new player who never played dragonflight as your example because that's the only possible scenario where their first priority is chrome time with a pre-order mount. You know the majority of people pre-ordering will be going for Dragon Isles content.

Well there are also players who may have quit during DF and don’t have much desire to level through the content. For them a mount they can only fully use in DF content probably won’t be appealing to them.

(Stop saying it takes a while to level up dragonriding. It takes 20 minutes max to get every glyph. The pathfinder achivement by comparison takes weeks.)

Actually 30 minutes to an hour if you know where the glyphs are;

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/dragon...g%20experience.

[Marlamin]

Actually 30 minutes to an hour if you know where the glyphs are;

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/dragon...g%20experience.

No shot the argument has come down to a up to 40 minute difference. I don't think this is going to go anywhere, you two.

[Xilurm]

Doing the EK cup has made me realize how tiny all the vanilla zones are. Are there going to be more cups? I seem to remember there was a Northrend one that was datamined? Would be cool as hell if there was an Outland one though.

Also, why exactly aren't they allowing people to just use dragonriding in the old zones? It seems to be perfectly possible considering a lot of zones have these races now.

[huth]

The website isn't coming back regardless of what bet I take unless I find a cache of money and time to continue maintaining a service like that.

Unless my scanner is wonky, i removed all of those, so fat chance. Well, except for that one on the other side of the origin point, but you're not getting there with your chemical rockets in any reasonable timeframe and it has a few seconds at most.

[Marlamin]

Doing the EK cup has made me realize how tiny all the vanilla zones are. Are there going to be more cups? I seem to remember there was a Northrend one that was datamined? Would be cool as hell if there was an Outland one though.

Also, why exactly aren't they allowing people to just use dragonriding in the old zones? It seems to be perfectly possible considering a lot of zones have these races now.

Outland racing is up next, Northrend racing is in the works/almost done (might just need hotfixes). Cup icons for all the other major continents also exist, so might honestly be addable through 100% hotfixes all the way through Shadowlands.

Unless my scanner is wonky, i removed all of those, so fat chance. Well, except for that one on the other side of the origin point, but you're not getting there with your chemical rockets in any reasonable timeframe and it has a few seconds at most.

Kakapo are shit at flying anyways.

[Nibelheimy]

Imagine making the Dragonflight pre-order mount a dragon you can't even dragon ride on. Could of easily been added as a Highland drake full transformation.

[Worldshaper]

So who's willing to bet that the Earth Mother is somehow involved with everything we're seeing right now?

I'm sure the Tauren's version of the tale is part myth and allegory. But if you look at the story of the Earth Mother, it does look a bit suspicious.

- Roamed Azeroth at the time the Old Gods were free below the earth.

- Had control (somewhat) over Life, Death, and the Elements. Could shape the land and life itself.

- Created Azeroth's two moons and the Sun (these were her children, made from her eyes and tears). The bigger moon, the White Lady, is Elune.

- Created the seasons by sleeping, as well as the Tauren and a bunch of other plants and animals.

- Eventually "rooted" herself in the earth and became one with the land, as the Sun and the Moon(s) took over her duty to watch over Azeroth from above.

---

I wonder if it'll end up something like this: Eonar fell in love with our world, and shaped much of its wildlife.

Maybe causing or strengthening the link between the Emerald Dream and the Shadowlands. Maybe, allowed Elune and the Winter Queen to keep watch over Azeroth (symbolised with the moons) alongside their brother (the Sun).

Directed some of influencing Azeroth's life-force to create new life.

The part about rooting herself to the world could perhaps be that tree which got snatched away from her. Maybe she poured all of her love into it or something.

Another option could perhaps be that the Earth Mother represents the world-soul itself, which perhaps roamed the planet through an avatar in the old days, seeding life etc., before getting confined to the world's core for some reason.

Perhaps the Titans arrived and locked her in there and put her to sleep for "her own good", as they figured out the Old God situation?

[Ersula]

Also, why exactly aren't they allowing people to just use dragonriding in the old zones? It seems to be perfectly possible considering a lot of zones have these races now.

it's ready to go. Almost like it'll be some sort of pre-order bonus & they've been making normal flying irrelevant by locking it behind time consuming achivements

[Dragon ANX]

Question
In addition to the traditional elements of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, what are the other elements officially recognized in Azeroth?
Do we know if every element "must have" an elemental Lord?
Do we know all the elemental Lords?

[Ersula]

I wonder if it'll end up something like this: Eonar fell in love with our world, and shaped much of its wildlife.

She fell in love with a baby? Jail.

[Worldshaper]

She fell in love with a baby? Jail.

Haha. Fell in love in the same way I could fall in love with a new country I'm visiting.

But I almost like the idea of Azeroth's world-soul being the Earth Mother even more. Being imprisoned and perhaps put to sleep by the Titans for "her own good" seems like a thing they'd do. Could have a lot to do with all this talk of dreams, sleeping, etc.