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

[Wangming]

Okay....

WHY?

When new lands have more potential for freshness?

Because you will abandon those new zones with the next expansion. But you will keep returning to racial capitals. Stormwind harbor has seen constant use since Wrath. We keep returning to Tirisfal every expansion for a new questline. Those places see use.

[SunspotAnims]

I'm starting to feel like the revamp I would most want to see is a ground-up recreation of EK and Kalimdor—larger than the originals, with modern graphics and design considerations. A graphical update or selective revamps to zones like Cataclysm did would be fine, but it would pretty much only achieve a "re-freshening" of ancient content rather than modernizing it entirely. Rebuilding the original world would give us an opportunity to rediscover the world we know so intimately and have it feel genuinely new.

...but it would also be just really hard, probably an effort that would be broken into multiple expansions worth of development, but I suppose that also has the perks of multiple expansions of not having to pull new continents out of nowhere. I don't know if it's ever the approach they intend to take regarding the old world, but I think it should be something for the devs to consider.

[Cheezits]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...torming-Shores

I like this leak, because it remembers the Player Jinyu and also the idea of a NEW monkey race because Hozen don't work as playable is very funny to me.

[Selorian]

Because you will abandon those new zones with the next expansion. But you will keep returning to racial capitals. Stormwind harbor has seen constant use since Wrath. We keep returning to Tirisfal every expansion for a new questline. Those places see use.

So what you're saying is they already get content updates like you guys are asking for?

[Wangming]

Dude, your idea of ambition is to just rehash zones from 2003

And your idea of ambition is what exactly? Don't just be a salty politician from a non-elected party. Give us something better.

[Wangming]

So what you're saying is they already get content updates like you guys are asking for?

What I'm saying is those zones remain relevant for a long time so making them look new and not 13 years old actually pays off.

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https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...torming-Shores

I like this leak, because it remembers the Player Jinyu and also the idea of a NEW monkey race because Hozen don't work as playable is very funny to me.

Reads too much like a christmas list to be credible, but there is nothing on the list that I hate.

[Revamp Man]

Okay....

WHY?

When new lands have more potential for freshness?

Because it feeds nostalgia and exploration
I mean how many people even know about the singing sunflower quests unless they look it up nowadays or that you get to play as Arthas

[lostsoup]

I'm starting to feel like the revamp I would most want to see is a ground-up recreation of EK and Kalimdor—larger than the originals, with modern graphics and design considerations. A graphical update or selective revamps to zones like Cataclysm did would be fine, but it would pretty much only achieve a "re-freshening" of ancient content rather than modernizing it entirely. Rebuilding the original world would give us an opportunity to rediscover the world we know so intimately and have it feel genuinely new.

...but it would also be just really hard, probably an effort that would be broken into multiple expansions worth of development, but I suppose that also has the perks of multiple expansions of not having to pull new continents out of nowhere. I don't know if it's ever the approach they intend to take regarding the old world, but I think it should be something for the devs to consider.

Wait, did people think a world revamp just meant updating textures in EK and Kalimdor? Dragonriding alone means that if they want these continents to not be seen as a small, outdated joke they need to remake their terrain from scratch. New cities all around the size of Valdrakken, etc.

Which... honestly, shouldn't be that hard with their team size nowadays. There's plenty of assets they could reuse from Legion onwards, Dragonflight textures, etc. They don't need to spend time creating a zone's history or make any new races or cultures or anything.

[Revamp Man]

If Blizzard does a revamp it will be a few zones at a time with ziidormi phasing so we don't lose anything

[Makabreska]

once again, why are you talking about losing anything?
wow classic isn't here for nothing

WoW Classic is a different game you can't experience on the same character.

[SunspotAnims]

Wait, did people think a world revamp just meant updating textures in EK and Kalimdor? Dragonriding alone means that if they want these continents to not be seen as a small, outdated joke they need to remake their terrain from scratch. New cities all around the size of Valdrakken, etc.

Which... honestly, shouldn't be that hard with their team size nowadays. There's plenty of assets they could reuse from Legion onwards, Dragonflight textures, etc. They don't need to spend time creating a zone's history or make any new races or cultures or anything.

Don't be so condescending, a lot of people imagine "revamp" as another Cataclysm, because what happened in Cataclysm is the definition of a revamp and it's our only historical precedent for it. Cataclysm took the old world as it was and changed things mostly on a zone-level scale. Rebuilding the original continents from the ground up and populating it with new story/gameplay isn't that; it would be something that's never really done before unless you count Draenor as a "revamp" of Outland.

[Darkarath]

Damn just make WoW 2

I think that their plan is keep developing WoW without major changes, because let us face it, they cannot turn a 20 years old game upside down. They would piss off their loyal playerbase and it is highly unlikely that they would get a new and younger playerbase, no matter how good the resulting product was.

What I hope that they do (while keeping WoW alive until its inevitable death), is make a new Warcraft game. Warcraft IV would be welcomed, but it is not what the franchise needs. Warcraft needs a new massive project for younger audiences. It is a very old franchise. It needs to reach a new public.

IMO, the best that they can do, as I have said multiple times before, is an online singleplayer action RPG experience with multiplayer elements. Again, Genshin Impact is the perfect example. It does not have to be exactly that, but something similar. They do not even need to have a massive world to start (Genshin started small and now it is massive). The world is already there, the lore too, the characters too, they can tell a different story within WoW's current timeline or move to a different period of history.

Let us create our own character and see Azeroth in a new, amazing, more detailed and narrative way, with current generation graphics and combat.

[Wangming]

WoW Classic is a different game you can't experience on the same character.

Any given character will experience one of seven expansion stories from 1 to 50. You don't get to see all those places on the same character now either.

[Well Done Steak]

Because you will abandon those new zones with the next expansion. But you will keep returning to racial capitals. Stormwind harbor has seen constant use since Wrath. We keep returning to Tirisfal every expansion for a new questline. Those places see use.

Capital cities are different... They're effectively hub zones. We have no reason to return to westfall unless some dev has a hard on for it instead of something like Karesh.

[Pyrophax]

Wide open spaces with rewamp can be filled in time. You dont need to fill it like prev expansion was. Just main questline, few side quests. And in next expansion fill the space with content. Heck, we can have like another expansions filled with new content but old locations!

Any given character will experience one of seven expansion stories from 1 to 50. You don't get to see all those places on the same character now either.

You can, just not for leveling.

[Wangming]

Capital cities are different... They're effectively hub zones. We have no reason to return to westfall unless some dev has a hard on for it instead of something like Karesh.

Funny you should say that cause the Human Heritage Questline in DF takes us back to Westfall.
Also both Legion, BfA and the Shadowlands launch event affected Duskwood. But we don't see that reflected in the state of the zone. Because that would require a revamp.

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You can, just not for leveling.

Well, you can phisically go to those zones, yes. But you won't experience the storylines.

[Selorian]

And your idea of ambition is what exactly? Don't just be a salty politician from a non-elected party. Give us something better.

More world content, storylines like what we got with the blue dragonflight was cool. More scenarios like Brawler's Guild and Deaths of Chromie or Mage Tower for players to do outside of dungeons/raid that doesn't have a bunch of player power attached to it (stuff like Horrific Visions and Torghast could also fit this), bonus points if it's a fresh experience when playing on a different class. Something that I would enjoy would be like, an advanced leveling experience. A lot of named mobs in the world don't really do anything special, but if they were like a mini-boss encounter or you had mini-dungeons (like Darkmaul Citadel) that could serve as like, something to keep experienced players more engaged while leveling and serving as extra tutorial to the multiplayer aspects of the game for newer players would be good. One of my pet peeves with WoW is that even though I think its combat is very good, it does a horrible job of introducing players to the nuances of combat beyond the basics of your rotation and I think it would be cool to add stuff like that.

To throw the question back at you, what is your idea of an updated old world? What matters there that is going to keep people attached that can't just be done in a new continent? Was what BFA did with Arathi and Darkshore and Uldum and the Vale good? Because fmpov, there is no way to make content that is going to keep people interested in it for years after it's stopped being the current thing. That's simply not how live service games work. Honestly that's not really how any game works unless you are one of the dedicated few that just really loves it or if it's something that happens to have insane depth of gameplay

edit: I also think DF itself was a big risk because of ambition in it. The patch cadence, dragonriding, the talent trees. They abandoned basically everything from Legion/BFA/SL

[Xilurm]

Evergreen content would help with returning to old zones.

[Magistrate]

That explains those revamped Darkmoon Faire tents.... it's all coming together!

? Is this datamined somewhere?

[Wangming]

More world content, storylines like what we got with the blue dragonflight was cool. More scenarios like Brawler's Guild and Deaths of Chromie or Mage Tower for players to do outside of dungeons/raid that doesn't have a bunch of player power attached to it (stuff like Horrific Visions and Torghast could also fit this), bonus points if it's a fresh experience when playing on a different class. Something that I would enjoy would be like, an advanced leveling experience. A lot of named mobs in the world don't really do anything special, but if they were like a mini-boss encounter or you had mini-dungeons (like Darkmaul Citadel) that could serve as like, something to keep experienced players more engaged while leveling and serving as extra tutorial to the multiplayer aspects of the game for newer players would be good. One of my pet peeves with WoW is that even though I think its combat is very good, it does a horrible job of introducing players to the nuances of combat beyond the basics of your rotation and I think it would be cool to add stuff like that.

To throw the question back at you, what is your idea of an updated old world? What matters there that is going to keep people attached that can't just be done in a new continent? Was what BFA did with Arathi and Darkshore and Uldum and the Vale good? Because fmpov, there is no way to make content that is going to keep people interested in it for years after it's stopped being the current thing. That's simply not how live service games work. Honestly that's not really how any game works unless you are one of the dedicated few that just really loves it or if it's something that happens to have insane depth of gameplay

edit: I also think DF itself was a big risk because of ambition in it. The patch cadence, dragonriding, the talent trees. They abandoned basically everything from Legion/BFA/SL

You answered your second paragraph in your first. We need a new leveling experience with mini bosses, scenarios and a cohesive storyline that isn't the distant pass. That can't "just be done in a new continent"
The leveling experience suck balls. You either do Exile's Reach with no contenxt and very little in faction or racial identity or one of the positively ancient racial starters. The newest non-dracthyr one is the demon hunter which is seven years old. After that? You either do BfA with zero context and even less regard to how new you are to the game or you Chromie time to an even more outdated journey for the next 40 or so levels.
A the very least we need to revamp the racial starters and provide a new leveling path up to at least SL if not DF that is up to contemporary standards.

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Evergreen content would help with returning to old zones.

Yeah that would indeed help a lot.