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

[seainma]

Agreed, at least that way we have something to discuss instead of Teriz' headcanon claiming it's all facts and whiplashing back and forth between opinions just to be contrarian.


To get back on topic;

I am really curious what the end result of the Amirdrassil raid will be. Will Fyrakk "win" or will we stop him? The outcome of that seems really intruiging.

I suspect that we will stop him. I can't imagine they would let another night elf tree be destroyed. My question is will he be killed or will he escape? There is quite a lot they can do with him if he does escape.. For example: Perhaps he hides out in the elemental planes and starts siphoning their power.

[ro9ue]

Next expansion according to AI:

Really cool images. Curious what your prompts are? You seem to be able to get a vaguely warcrafty art style. Midjourney?

[Marlamin]

Seeing other things pulled into (or out of) the whole "encrypted for the pre-order" thing so wanted to write this up to hopefully clear up any misconceptions. This is verifiable by anyone that uses my tools or has tools of their own.

This is encrypted under the same encryption key (without investigating assets, this is only based on the database table metadata Blizzard kindly provides):

• 23 achievements, which we know thanks to the Web API leak include:
  
  • "Storm Rider: Bronze"
  • "Storm Rider: Silver"
  • "Storm Rider: Gold"
  • "Heroic Edition: Algarian Stormrider"
  • "Squally"
  • None of the other leaked web API achievements
• 1 battle pet (likely Squally due to included achievement)
• 1 character service (likely a boost due to included race/class gear loadouts)
• 1 title
• 1 character model (all customizable mounts are character models) with 12 customization options with a combined 46 choices
• 1 character race (again, customizable mounts are required to be character models, a player race would have far more other encrypted tables)
• 2 creatures (likely the mount and pet)
• 6 dynamic flying abilty mappings (e.g. Surge Forward)
• 20 items, 5 of which with effects tied to them (e.g. "Learn mount/pet/transmog x")
• 1 mount (likely Algarian Stormrider due to included achievement)
• 1 questline with 2 quests
• 11 quests (includes above 2, might include tracking quests too etc)
• 2 toys
• 2 transmog sets (with 16 encrypted transmog set items, maybe 8 per set)
• 6 paths for races (likely the ones required for the Storm Rider achievements)
• 4 in-game store assets
• ...and a whole bunch more things likely related to the above

All of these are to be taken in the same context as they are all under the same key and as such will decrypt at the same time, with that knowledge and based on the combination of things in there (and NOT in there) one can come to the following logical assumptions of what the key contains:

• A bundle(s) of stuff available on the in-game store, this combination only historically being for expansions, including but not limited to (could have more/less per edition):
  
  • a customizable dynamic flying mount (Algarian Stormrider)
  • a pet (Squally)
  • a character boost
• Some sort of event or quest involving:
  
  • 6 "dragonriding races" (which might need a new non-dragon name...)
  • Storm Rider achievements (of which I am guessing the gold one rewards the title)
• Other stuff

However, keep in mind additional things might unlock at the same time as well (for example the Fyrn pet which is connected to an encrypted mount, both of which share textures with pre-existing wind/air elemental related models), but this could be something completely unrelated as well.

Investigating of the encrypted assets/database data will likely expose more things, but I'm purposely not going to be doing that.

And the preorder mount for 11.0 is probably a customizable “dragonriding” gryphon based on the datamining.

To be clear, datamining has not indicated the mount in the above encryption key is or is not a gryphon.

[Ersula]

Nah, it's definitely holy magic.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=387708/tyrs-wrath
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=387740/bulwark-of-order

Keep in mind, these were made in Dragonflight, not years ago. So this is certainly intentional.

Didn't we already establish they're a big difference between magic & cosmic forces? It's like if you specialize in shadow magic you aren't inherently a servant of the void lords. Or if you use Fire Magic that doesn't make you a demon. The cosmic forces are more metaphorical.

6 dynamic flying abilty mappings (e.g. Surge Forward)

This one is intriguing, since besides the customization options, it sets this bundle apart from typical pre-order bundles for wow expansions. Are these existing abilities or new abilities?

[ro9ue]

It's a real texture, but that's all we know really.

Legit although we don't know for sure if it's tied to the 11.0 ce mount

Thanks. I was wondering because I remember multiple beaks. Usually a texture just has one set of features that maps onto a model. So wasn't sure if that was like.... a deformity like the Urzul mount and its a Gryphon with multiple heads ... does look kinda ghostly. Or if that's just multiple variations for some kind of animation.

[Worldshaper]

To me a lot of it feels more coincidental than intentional. For example:
• We had Infinite Dragonflight in Wrath.
• We had the Dragon Aspects in Wrath too.
• We had old gods in vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, Legion and BfA.
• We had naga in vanilla, TBC, Wrath, Cata, etc...

Not to mention you equate "cultists" as being one single entity, which is not fair considering the cultists in Cataclysm were the Twilight Hammer, and here we have the Primalists. They're different cult, with different "deities" and goals. If we go with just "cultists" then we had cultists in basically every single expansion.

No, see what you're doing right now is saying:

"We had elves and dwarves in Norse mythology. The hobbits are pretty much British. Oh, and giant eagles are in loads of media. There's just no correlation between The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings."

World of Warcraft is set on Azeroth. Azeroth has loads of stuff going on, all of the time. No expansion is ever about just one single theme, and virtually everything you'd find in one expansion will also appear in lots of different ones.

The difference here is that several elements come together very closely to form different themes, or stories.

We saw it with TBC/WoD/Legion, we saw it with WotLK/BfA/SL, and we're seeing it with Cata/DF/11.0.

[Teriz]

I'm def with you on that. I wonder if some people just haven't been playing that long. Specifics off the top of my head that people can go run through in Cata content right now if they aren't onboard:
- The Hyjal zone + Molten Front + Firelands is like... literally identical conceptually and visually to what we're getting in 10.2 lol.
- Blackwing Descent.... Nefarian's lab with experimentations..... Aberrus. Shadowflame / corrupted dragons.
- End Times + other bronze dragon dungeons = Dawn of the Infinite.
- Aspects lose powers = Aspects regain powers.
- The first raid Vault of Incarnates even had a bunch of references mechanically to Bastion of Twilight and Grim Batol. Flying in on a bombing run with dragons. The elemental bosses and the ascendants of BoT. Broodkeeper and Sinestra.


BTW

I would add one more thing to your list of things not included in DF that was central in Cataclysm....

Dwarves. Twilight Highlands questing. Grim Batol.

So if you just take whats missing you get a clear set of themes:
- Archaeology/Uldum
- Dwarves/Old Dwarven ruins -Twilight Highlands is in Khaz Modan.... (Khaz'Algar)
- Void
- Thrall
- Vashjir/Naga
- Deepholm/Underground zone
- Elemental lords/elemental planes
- Goblins (Kezan) Worgen (Gilneas), may see revamps to these areas or new races depending how you look at it.

.. sounds a lot like what people are predicting in this thread already.

I do wonder with all the Dwarf stuff dropping in 10.2 if we're getting Dwarven content in the patch after 10.2. People seem to think that Dragonflight ends with 10.2, not seeming to realize that there's at least 2 more patches after 10.2 drops and those patches (if they're anything like the previous patches this expansion) will be sizeable and full of story beats.

[ro9ue]

[*] 1 title

The title might be Storm Rider. If the Storm Riding are achievements based on a limited time pre-patch event, like storms show up in the sky and you have to dragonride through them, could be something you can earn like Iron Vanguard for the WoD prepatch.

[Worldshaper]

I'm def with you on that. I wonder if some people just haven't been playing that long. Specifics off the top of my head that people can go run through in Cata content right now if they aren't onboard:
- The Hyjal zone + Molten Front + Firelands is like... literally identical conceptually and visually to what we're getting in 10.2 lol.
- Blackwing Descent.... Nefarian's lab with experimentations..... Aberrus. Shadowflame / corrupted dragons.
- End Times + other bronze dragon dungeons = Dawn of the Infinite.
- Aspects lose powers = Aspects regain powers.
- The first raid Vault of Incarnates even had a bunch of references mechanically to Bastion of Twilight and Grim Batol. Flying in on a bombing run with dragons. The elemental bosses and the ascendants of BoT. Broodkeeper and Sinestra.


BTW

I would add one more thing to your list of things not included in DF that was central in Cataclysm....

Dwarves. Twilight Highlands questing. Grim Batol.

So if you just take whats missing you get a clear set of themes:
- Archaeology/Uldum
- Dwarves/Old Dwarven ruins -Twilight Highlands is in Khaz Modan.... (Khaz'Algar)
- Void
- Thrall
- Vashjir/Naga
- Deepholm/Underground zone
- Elemental lords/elemental planes
- Goblins (Kezan) Worgen (Gilneas), may see revamps to these areas or new races depending how you look at it.

.. sounds a lot like what people are predicting in this thread already.

Thank you! I feel like I'm going crazy, here.

[Yzmor]

Really cool images. Curious what your prompts are? You seem to be able to get a vaguely warcrafty art style. Midjourney?

I used Canva's Text to Image and it's funny that it became so Khaz Alagarish, since my prompt was literally this: "digital art of World of Warcraft's newest expansion".

(I assume the AI is connected to the internet and it scans the freshest public material/information related to the prompt and then mocks something up? Khaz Algar and dwarven theme has been mentioned a million times on the internet since Reddit/Wowhead broke the news.)

[Teriz]

Thank you! I feel like I'm going crazy, here.

LoL! I know the feeling. I do I think you're on the right track my dude.

[Marlamin]

The title might be Storm Rider. If the Storm Riding are achievements based on a limited time pre-patch event, like storms show up in the sky and you have to dragonride through them, could be something you can earn like Iron Vanguard for the WoD prepatch.

Based on database metadata it is slightly longer than that, 18 characters including the "%s" part for the player name.

[NikolaiShade]

Thanks. I was wondering because I remember multiple beaks. Usually a texture just has one set of features that maps onto a model. So wasn't sure if that was like.... a deformity like the Urzul mount and its a Gryphon with multiple heads ... does look kinda ghostly. Or if that's just multiple variations for some kind of animation.

To be honest I think the Algarian Stormrider is some kind of gryphon, not so sure these textures are for that particual gryphon

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Next expansion according to AI:

Looks like the machines support a Gorian expansion.

[Marlamin]

This one is intriguing, since besides the customization options, it sets this bundle apart from typical pre-order bundles for wow expansions. Are these existing abilities or new abilities?

Could be either, but I'd expect at least some of the existing ones as they are what everyone is used to.

[huth]

If it means anything, I think we should not capitalize "shadow", since people will likely confuse it with the Cosmic force, which is "Shadow with a capital S".

Shadow is the Cosmic Force which represents e everything dark, which includes the Void (AKA Shadows most commonly used form and magic type seemingly). The magic of shadow is just that, a magic type, and it's one that's most associated with Rogues and Druids and whatnot, but it is fundamentally connected to the force of Shadow regardless, since shadow magics cannot really exist without the force of Shadow, right?

I prefer Void as the name of the cosmic force for that reason. Shadow is a magic school not associated with any specific force, though primarily used by Void, Disorder and Death.

[Cheezits]

The Worgen being so absent from Amirdrassil, both in the Dream and in the supposed Amirdrassil Alive zone (there are a lot of Nelf NPCs in the files who aren't in hte Dream, so they may be settling on the Living Tree early) makes me suspicious of how the Worgen are going to play into 11.0. I don't think a single Genn Greymane NPC has been found despite Tess being listed in the files.

Maybe Retaking Gilneas is a Heritage Sequel quest in 10.2.5, or they are saving it for 11.0 (maybe with the Goblins and Undermine?) to emphasize that 11.0 is a Cataclysm 2 theme.

[Yunravel]

Yeah, because those achievements are going to be available in 10.2, and we're going to get Gryphon dragonriding in 10.2, and we're going to be getting Dwarven storm riding gear in the trading post in 10.2. More than likely, none of that has anything to do with 11.0. The only thing likely tied to 11.0 is the Algarian Stormrider, which might have nothing to do with the Dwarf stuff coming in 10.2.

I mean, Teriz is saying the truth, that algarian stormrider is likely the mount we see on the blizz ads, which some kind of a storm elemental but we'll see

[Ersula]

The title might be Storm Rider. If the Storm Riding are achievements based on a limited time pre-patch event, like storms show up in the sky and you have to dragonride through them, could be something you can earn like Iron Vanguard for the WoD prepatch.

That's very likely. Though I bet it's linked to completing the dragonriding cup instead of the purchase. If it's supposedly 18 characters it might be "Rider of Storms" or something

I mean, Teriz is saying the truth, that algarian stormrider is likely the mount we see on the blizz ads, which some kind of a storm elemental but we'll see

Only because the rest of us dragged him here, kicking & screaming. At least he's still not insisting the Algarian Stormrider can't be a dragonriding mount, because Marlamin proved that it is.

[Marlamin]

That's very likely. Though I bet it's linked to completing the dragonriding cup instead of the purchase.

Yeah, as I mentioned in the post I'm assuming whatever title it is (not just "Storm Rider") is linked to the Storm Rider: Gold achievement, but that remains to be seen.