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

[Wangming]

Do you think we’ll have a return of N’Zoth in the form of him (or his essence) being contained in the Blade of the Black Empire?

I know the blade kind of just *poofed* after Wrathion stabbed N’Zoth, but… it couldn’t really just disintegrate like that… could it?

To quote Xul from Diablo Immortal: No corpse, not dead.

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Couldnt tell you. I got married last week so I only returned to 100+ pages today and saw Bells vid on YT.

Wow, congrats

[Alanar]

Just give us Bard either as a Rogue spec or it’s own class in 11.0, please.

When ever some one mention this, I see this semi femenine guy in front of me, jumping around with hes flutes and a bunch of rats behind him.

Idk, the whole thing sounds really lame to me.. barb. :s

[NikolaiShade]

Do you think we’ll have a return of N’Zoth in the form of him (or his essence) being contained in the Blade of the Black Empire?

I know the blade kind of just *poofed* after Wrathion stabbed N’Zoth, but… it couldn’t really just disintegrate like that… could it?

Crazy Internet Theory: we meet N'zoth in a trip to the past during DF and he recognizes us. So the theory is basically that meeting us in the past N'zoth has been able to pinpoint wich possible future he will find himself in and so he could have created contingency plans. Xal'atath could be the Harbinger and the figure in the portal, so the involvement of the old gods is almost assured.

[Nathanyel]

Looks like most of those are just name changes to the Legion appearances though.

I'm talking about the naming style of "Full Transformation - XY", which to paraphrase Marlamin could just be for consistency, but might also mean there'll be forms beyond the Moonkin one which you can further customize, presumably the existing racial forms, and/or new neutral ones to which you can add racial flavor via specific customizations.

[Woggmer]

Two reasons:

1. A lot of people simply left and never came back. Or didn't come back yet. Dragonflight is just so incredibly boring. I mean it's not bad like Shadowlands, it's just... meh. Maybe that's worse, because people don't even hate on it, they simply don't care anymore.

2. The "datamined" or suggested stuff for the upcoming expansion is just another random nonsense that doesn't create any interest besides the usual lore-fanboys or people that are lurking here. Imagine if the upcoming expansion is indeed the Dwarf snooze fest. Why would anyone outside of the mentioned bubble even care? It's too random and too niche to peak any interest. WoW needs another Legion and not another WoD.

As of now, Metzen is really the only reedeming grace and that is solely built on copium at this point because there's nothing to back it up... yet. It's so sad when Classic HC creates more hype and interest than any major patch of your recent expansion. That just shouldn't be the case... at all.



WoD was never meant to be that. Annual expansions would structurally be different as well. More like "seasons" that last for one year. Would this be better for WoW? Most likely not. But it would totally fall in line with all their battle pass / season bullsh*ttery from Diablo, Hearthstone & Co. And something like this could revive WoW when it's done right and not overpriced.

True, but that isn't going to work for WoW even if they try to hamfist it into the game. They know full well not to temper with WoW's structure or else it'll be bad news. (Even if they wanted to, they could've done so at any point in previous expansions.)

Still, if Microsoft gave Blizz more freedom to adjust deadlines and make for time then Blizz could work on a revamp and make the game a fresh start for people. That is why Classic has such an appeal, it's an entirely fresh start back to 0. So the whole, "They won't have enough time or resources to make a revamp" isn't going to matter much once Microsoft takes over.

At least, that's the underlying hope in all this.

[Nyel]

Vanilla: Kel'Thuzad
TBC: Kil'Jaeden
Wrath: Arthas
Cata: Deathwing
Mop: Garrosh
WoD: Archimonde
Legion: Argus
BfA: N'Zoth
SL: Zovaal
Dragonflight: Fyrakk

Yeah most expansions understood the assignment.

Shadowlands at least had some iconic characters as bosses like Kel'Thuzad, Sylvanas and Anduin. At least we knew them before and they were memorable. But Dragonflight? We have a random Grimtotem in Vault, Echo of Neltharion in Abberus and Smolderon in Amirdrassil - these are the most known characters in all of the DF raids. Like... honestly? The Incarnates fail as major threats as much as Zovaal because we didn't know about them before their expansion. There's neither tension nor interest and Blizzard failed again to build any of that during the respective expansion. That's why Iridikron being the new "Gul'dan" is a good thing and leaves something to expect for the next expansion.

[Wangming]

When ever some one mention this, I see this semi femenine guy in front of me, jumping around with hes flutes and a bunch of rats behind him.

Idk, the whole thing sounds really lame to me.. barb. :s

Well, the citizens of Hamelin also thought that mental picture was funny.

Until it wasn't.

[Makorus]

Shadowlands at least had some iconic characters as bosses like Kel'Thuzad, Sylvanas and Anduin. At least we knew them before and they were memorable. But Dragonflight? We have a random Grimtotem in Vault, Echo of Neltharion in Abberus and Smolderon in Amirdrassil - these are the most known characters in all of the DF raids. Like... honestly?

Does every raid need to bring back some random obscure character from WC3 to be good?

All villains from DF have been alright (Raszageth is probably the worst, to be fair, but then again you get the least of her).

[Wangming]

Shadowlands at least had some iconic characters as bosses like Kel'Thuzad, Sylvanas and Anduin. At least we knew them before and they were memorable. But Dragonflight? We have a random Grimtotem in Vault, Echo of Neltharion in Abberus and Smolderon in Amirdrassil - these are the most known characters in all of the DF raids. Like... honestly? The Incarnates fail as major threats as much as Zovaal because we didn't know about them before their expansion. There's neither tension nor interest and Blizzard failed again to build any of that during the respective expansion. That's why Iridikron being the new "Gul'dan" is a good thing and leaves something to expect for the next expansion.

Oh for sure. I mean Argus was also an asspull, but we fought many characters that we have known for years now.
I just listed the end bosses of the expansions.
Also regardless of anything else about Zovaal, it was pretty clear during BgA that Sylvanas had a boss who pumped up her death magic. We just couldn't give a face and name to that unknown entity. Nothing suggested the Incarnates existed before DF.

[Nyel]

Does every raid need to bring back some random obscure character from WC3 to be good?

All villains from DF have been alright (Raszageth is probably the worst, to be fair, but then again you get the least of her).

No, absolutely not. The bosses you face - at least the endbosses - should be well-known and interesting though. And in Dragonflight, neither the normal nor the final bosses are remotely interesting. And that's the problem: being alright three times in a row is not enough. There's no climax. Dragonflight's raids / raid bosses started flat and then just stayed flat.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

I think that’s DF in a nutshell. It’s a fine expansion. For the most part it’s fun, but it’s average. It’s not stand out. None of the 5 man dungeons have been standouts either except for MAYBE Algethar (in my opinion).

It think as a base for gameplay, talents and gearing, world quests being fun again, crafting, more variety in transmogs via trading post, bringing finally some long requested transmogs to the loot table like gorehowl and now in 10.2 ravencrest sword for example.. dragonflight is really doing a good job with that.

I mostly do normal raids, i don't m+, im focusing on open world stuff - The open world stuff like i mentioned in my other comment is super boring this expansion and i love invasion like events when it's not overdone and doesn't feel like every event almost feels the same in a way.

But it's like you said nothing really stands out or does impact on me when it comes to overall feeling and atmosphere of this expansion, hardly anything that will actually make me think back of DF besides the fact that it just happened, i won't come back to watching the cutscenes or cinematics etc to hype myself up, because there's nothing that will do it so far..

The 2 things i will remember from actual new content so far are - Forbidden reach when it started with rare hunting and megadungeon, but these are always great.


Overall i think that there's nothing gigantic and very creative, longlasting feature in DF that would justify it not having 10.3 and i don't really care about the size of zones.

[Makorus]

No, absolutely not. The bosses you face - at least the endbosses - should be well-known and interesting though. And in Dragonflight, neither the normal nor the final bosses are remotely interesting. And that's the problem: being alright three times in a row is not enough. There's no climax. Dragonflight's raids / raid bosses started flat and then just stayed flat.

idk. I think Fyrakk is an interesting enough villain. Is he a Garrosh-level endboss? Absolutely not.

Certainly more build up than something like Kil'jaeden in TBC who was the definition of "Oh, I remember him!" with no actual substance

[Murlocos]

I'd sooner expect expansions having x.2 as the final major patch to be the new norm rather than it signaling something huge for 11.0.

An earlier release doesn't do me any good when they're still asking me to pay $50 per expansion. Hell, that $50 used to include a level boost and now it doesn't.

[Wangming]

idk. I think Fyrakk is an interesting enough villain. Is he a Garrosh-level endboss? Absolutely not.

Certainly more build up than something like Kil'jaeden in TBC who was the definition of "Oh, I remember him!" with no actual substance

Yes, TBC had a problem of hyping up Illdian as a poster child then killing him off in the first patch. After that we had a Troll detour and after that it was Kael back with Kil'Jaeden. Not much buildup in the expansion itself.
But we have to consider two things.
1. KJ had plenty of buildup in TFT
2. It was the very first expansion, so things are bound to be a bit undercooked. But the ninth expansion has no such excuse.

[Teriz]

I’d also like a Tinker at some point but I feel like it’ll only show up when we see Undermine.

There’s a chance we’ll see Undermine in 11.0, so who knows?

[Santandame]

Vanilla: Kel'Thuzad
TBC: Kil'Jaeden
Wrath: Arthas
Cata: Deathwing
Mop: Garrosh
WoD: Archimonde
Legion: Argus
BfA: N'Zoth
SL: Zovaal
Dragonflight: Fyrakk

Yeah most expansions understood the assignment.

I think Fyrakk is a brilliantly entertaining villain but you look at that list and up until SL, it really does put things into perspective and makes DF seem underwhelming. At least Zovaal had all the credentials retroactively added to his resume despite being a poor character.

[Sondrelk]

I'd sooner expect expansions having x.2 as the final major patch to be the new norm rather than it signaling something huge for 11.0.

An earlier release doesn't do me any good when they're still asking me to pay $50 per expansion. Hell, that $50 used to include a level boost and now it doesn't.

The touch point in that thinking is that it will massive impact release schedules.
Currently we have the very reasonable cycle of 3-4 months for first major patch, then 6 months between major ones after that. Leaving a large drought after the final patch for a 2-year expansion cycle.

Which of these factors will have to give for only two major patches I wonder. Will we have one and a half year expansion cycles? Or will we have longer droughts between each major patch to compensate?

[Nyel]

idk. I think Fyrakk is an interesting enough villain. Is he a Garrosh-level endboss? Absolutely not.

Certainly more build up than something like Kil'jaeden in TBC who was the definition of "Oh, I remember him!" with no actual substance

I mean everybody back then and now agrees that Kil'jaeden was pretty much an asspull, but it's undeniable that bosses like Vashj, Kael'thas and nothing short of Illidan were outright iconic back then. Even Karazhan where we just fought a copy of Medivh was epic. Each expansion had at least a little of that, some expansions a lot more than others. Dragonflight though... it just never happened. I mean the Incarnates are alright bosses and they're not uninteresting, but they lack the oomph and the clout to feel like what Blizzard tried to achieve with them. They're just flat, but that might be more of a personal take here, others might find them interesting. But I think we can agree on that Dragonflight simply lacks a villain that leaves a lasting impression and doesn't just feel like raid boss fast food.

[Makorus]

I mean everybody back then and now agrees that Kil'jaeden was pretty much an asspull, but it's undeniable that bosses like Vashj, Kael'thas and nothing short of Illidan were outright iconic back then. Even Karazhan where we just fought a copy of Medivh was epic. Each expansion had at least a little of that, some expansions a lot more than others. Dragonflight though... it just never happened. I mean the Incarnates are alright bosses and they're not uninteresting, but they lack the oomph and the clout to feel like what Blizzard tried to achieve with them. They're just flat, but that might be more of a personal take here, others might find them interesting. But I think we can agree on that Dragonflight simply lacks a villain that leaves a lasting impression and doesn't just feel like raid boss fast food.

Sure, but at some point you run out of characters from WC3. That's my whole point. Blizzard has been using WC3 as a crutch in lieu of actually making interesting character.

You can only recycle Illidan or Vashj so much. Iridikron was a good start. Fyrakk was alright. Sarkareth was an amazing character that was just bogged down by being very splintered and only really talked about in the sidest of side quests (that were maybe only for Evokers?)

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I'd sooner expect expansions having x.2 as the final major patch to be the new norm rather than it signaling something huge for 11.0.

An earlier release doesn't do me any good when they're still asking me to pay $50 per expansion. Hell, that $50 used to include a level boost and now it doesn't.

To be fair this is why I just can't get over this Blizzcon if they are going to drop both of these news items at the same time.

I mean then again this is Blizzard PR & Marketing Team and suits, so maybe they are just going to try and get rid of everyone who aren't a true believer anymore. I feel like this is beyond insane tbh.

The touch point in that thinking is that it will massive impact release schedules.
Currently we have the very reasonable cycle of 3-4 months for first major patch, then 6 months between major ones after that. Leaving a large drought after the final patch for a 2-year expansion cycle.

Which of these factors will have to give for only two major patches I wonder. Will we have one and a half year expansion cycles? Or will we have longer droughts between each major patch to compensate?

The Narrative Team also struggles excessively at being competent in these timeframes as is with the 3 Major Patch structure. We can't deny its been worse with the 2 Major Patch structure.

As much as people bitch about how Narrative doesn't matter if the narratives always fail core marketing wise satisfying the common denominator then you've got a problem, jack.