Yeah, as far as I can recall there's not usually that much available in the demo and any features they show off in panels are usually in an early stage still, either a mockup or rough implementation. Hell, the DF talent system was still largely mockups pretty close to the Beta starting, which is why I'm curious to see how far along stuff this is this time.
- - - Updated - - -
I believe it was Bastion.
Okay so I've recently moved back to Canada from UK and for the last 2 weeks I have had very limited time to spend on mmoc.
I saw the achi finds and the gryphon textures etc, but can anyone summarize what has changed and where we're at in the last 400-500 pages? What are the key speculations / evidences etc?
Much appreciation for anyone who shoulders this burden.
Not if Classic+ or Classic HD are a real thing. Those could easily take that anniversary slot if they're a thing and leave 11.0 open to take the summer spot.
That said I'm hopeful that 10.3 exists because if not it's gonna take Dragonflight from a solid 9 to a 7 or so cause 10.2 feels like a whimper of an ending.
I dunno where 400 pages ago was, but:
We have the achievements, confirming that "Algarian Stormrider" is the name of the mount that is going to be in the heroic/epic versions of the next expansion. We don't actually know what the Algarian Stormrider is, beyond guesses.
The fact that it's named Algarian strongly suggests that 11.0 will feature Khaz Algar, the location mentioned in this book from Uldaman, which talks about how a group of earthen were sent to investigate an "anomaly" in a "fissure" in some sector, and that those earthen began to show symptoms similar to the curse of flesh, growing independent, though they did not physically become flesh. They started calling their sector "Khaz Algar".
This is often being correlated with "Alvaloren" a place which initially was named in another Uldaman lore book, which talks about how Odyn kept trying to send teams to pursue "heretics" in Alvaloren, but the teams he sent keep ending up dead/missing, with the wreckage of the most recent one washed up on their shores.
We've also gotten several other potentially, but not confirmed, related tidibits, first the Forbidden Reach book about Nightsquall, a pirate who sailed west of Kalimdor, an supposedly filled with perpetual storms, magic and monsters that no one ever returns from, where he apparently found someplace and returned with lots of treasure never seen before, and that he had even bigger plans in mind and was putting together a massive fleet for it.
And recently, in 10.2 PTR, a book about a young green dragon who loved exploring, eventually saw all of ancient Kalimdor, and bored, decided to fly off to the west despite Tyr warning her that "only ruin lies beyond the Storming Sea". She disappeared and was never heard from again, though some other green dragons claim to have seen her in her dreams and that she found someplace beyond the sea where she began raising her own brood.
These suggest that maybe we are gearing up for an expansion that takes place off to the west of Kalimdor, on the backside of the planet. Or at least that they are seeding the existence of such a location for future exploration.
We also got a 10.2 lorebook that talked about Eonar and Elune being close, and Eonar planting a branch of G'hanir given to her by Elune, that grew into a world tree. Aman'thul, viewing it as emblamtic of Life magic rather than being the Order they were supposed to be seeding, ripped the tree up in anger, leaving a crater than Eonar wept into, but her tears watered the left behind roots of the tree, which had buried very deep and continued to live on and grow. It's unknown what location this might be referring to, though some people have posited Un'goro, since we see it has a great tree in the Il'gynoth fight despite it not having one in the real location. Others have suggested this might be related to the above "fissure" in Khaz Algar.
We have several datamined encrypted mounts, one that is dragonriding capable and customizable, one that seems dragonriding capable but lacks customization(?), what seems to be an air elemental or something with a lot of wind effects, the spooky gryphon texture. There's also a blizzard elemental likely part of the Blizzcon collection pack, a Ysera murloc, and several unkown pets, a Squally and a Fyrn.
As was pointed out to me (after having read the text wrong myself), the fissure probably wasn't the thing that caused their symptoms. The Curse of Flesh was latent within them since their own creation, like with other Earthen it started manifesting itself after a while.
What seems to the effects of the fissure is that it prevented the curse from changing their physical forms, OR it altered it so that their forms still changed, but not into fleshy dwarves as it were.
It also might have sped the effect up, since they were separated by a lot of time from the Dwarves at Uldaman.
Ignoring the oddity that this report was written within the last 2500 years in game time, I don't think it would have sped up the curse.
"To those which would one day be apparent" tends to indicate that the Earthen Group sent to investigate the fissure predate the batch of Earthen that turned into Dwarves.In the course of their duties, these earthen began to manifest behaviors analogous to those which would one day be apparent in the self-styled dwarves, despite the two groups being separated by vast swaths of time and distance.
And not just a little, but a considerable amount of time earlier ("vast swaths of time") and that they were very far away from Dun Morogh ("and distance").
The phrasing also suggests it's a meta study of archived reports.
- - - Updated - - -
Not like the map is remotely scaled properly anyway. Having Kalimdor be to far west would be a complete non-issue unless they need the space for something.
I don't think this is true. Chronicle says that the Uldum tol'vir only got the Curse of Flesh when they were contacted by northern Titanforged; up to that point they were completely secluded. Which suggests that the Curse is communicable.
That said, given that the Earthen of Khaz Algar are compared to the dwarves that emerged from Uldaman, something that happened well after the Sundering, it could be that they were earthen dispatched from Ulduar.
The 98% is an entirely made up number btw.
- - - Updated - - -
Todghast was in the very first alpha so idk mate.
It was very bare bones though, but that is because of player feedback they had to complete overhaul it and the maw.
I still remember when you had to do the maw to get keys to do torghast.
- - - Updated - - -
It was bastion with a teleport to torghast.
Kind of weird that there isn't any Anubisath that show signs of the Curse of Flesh despite the fact they were also afflicted with it as well. The ones were only familiar with are the big obsidian giant constructs... so wouldn't there be other versions of them that are more fleshy and furry?
I doubt this will have anything to do with 11.0 but it is something to consider.
So, just for the sake of speculation, what do you guys think that we are getting in 10.2.5 - 10.2.7? It does not seem that we would have a 10.3, nor even a 10.2.7, but a 10.2.5 is a pretty safe bet, and it will probably be unveiled during Blizzcon. I am putting my money on:
- Shamans, Paladins and Druids for all races. 10.2 has quests that lead me to believe that it could happen all at once.
- Brawler's Guild.
- BfA Timewalking + Open World Timewalking.
- Dracthyr becoming other classes.
- Fated season.
- Tyr becoming an enemy. In 10.2 he would side with us, but after that it seems clear that he would not like the "new" Aspects. I also think that Paladins will flock to his aid. Could we see the return of Salandria? She is supposed to do some bad shit after all, maybe guided by Tyr?
That is all that I got. It is difficult to speculate about this because we do not even know if there will be a 10.3, which would change things dramatically. I would love to have one, even if it is a low effort one like 8.3.
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.