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

[Therougetitan]

Okay.. so I looked at the list of promotional achievements that were leaked.

Confirmed: Ysergle the Dreamurk, Lil' Maggz, and Lil' Frostwing (Putting this one in spoiler because it seems like the next promotional item for this week. Found out based on a search in Wowhead.) Along with all the Mini Rumble figure stuff as part of the Rumble promotional event.

Yet to be revealed: S.A.F.E, Survey Bot, Storm Rider: (Bronze, Silver, and Gold), Squally (likely the new expansion battle pet), Fyrn, and finally [Heroic Edition]: Algarian Stormrider.

S.A.F.E could be related to Warcraft Rumble's launch (or if by chance it is related to something IN WoW, one can only assume it'll involve gnomes or Gnomergan)
Storm Rider: (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) could be in relation to a race, but where it is remains to be seen.
Squally and the Algarian Stormrider could be connected to the next expansion, (with Squally being the Pre-Order Bonus). [Still no clue on what the expansion's theme will be.]

This just only leaves the Survey Bot and Fyrn as complete mysteries.

Frostwing is the 19th anniversary pet: https://www.wowhead.com/npc=209259/lil-frostwing

The promotion is probably another TCG item or maybe Arfus related

[Sondrelk]

Are there no mods on this forum? The amount of times ppl in this thread go completely off-topic and forget that this an 11.0/DF SPECULATION thread….

The line between on and off topic can be very blurry though. Discussing old expansions is relevant if you are debating potential features in the next expansion for instance. Same with story.

[Xilurm]

More customisation + class skins would be so good. Imagine the possibilities. RP'ers would go nuts. And even people like me who don't RP but still like their character to have some sort of backstory and the most possible immersion would really appreciate it.

More customisation options are really needed though regardless. No other race (on the alliance side at least) can match the amount of customisation the Humans have.

[Nightshade711]

Someone in Twitter (I think it was a WoW dev) pointed to more customization next PTR build.

We do know for sure that balance druids are getting a whole suite of customization. I do hope there’s more customization for other classes/races though.

On the topic of customization, I do hope we can unlock the primalist eyes that’ve been in the files for a while. Imo they look cool and could be used for a variety of non-elemental classes. (Like the primalist-earth eyes are perfect for a Paladin/Priest. The fire ones would be perfect for an augmentation evoker)

There’s some stuff attached to them that points to them being player customization.
Part of me is hoping it’s part of a challenge (like mage tower) to unlock… but it’ll probably be a reward for completing all the fated raids.

[Teriz]

They’d only be coming maybe a day or two early.
Plus I’d imagine they could delay the release of those specific items if they really wanted to.

You can theme a month around Dwarves without going "These items were selected because of the expansion!!!" on November 1st.

Certainly possible. Thankfully we'll know one way or another soon enough.

Unfortunately I must drop out of this conversation for now because I already see some posters accusing me of spamming the thread.

[Makorus]

We do know for sure that balance druids are getting a whole suite of customization. I do hope there’s more customization for other classes/races though.

On the topic of customization, I do hope we can unlock the primalist eyes that’ve been in the files for a while. Imo they look cool and could be used for a variety of non-elemental classes. (Like the primalist-earth eyes are perfect for a Paladin/holy priest.)

There’s some stuff attached to them that points to them being player customization.
Part of me is hoping it’s part of a challenge (like mage tower) to unlock… but it’ll probably be a reward for completing all the fated raids.

I mentioned it before and I mention it again:

Blizzard needs to go more all out with earnable cosmetic rewards, like the 10.1 armor special effects or even the KSH Tier Set effects.

Make a big meta achievement and let that unlock a cool cosmetic customization reward for all races. Primalist Eyes, new skin colour, an aura, something.

[Nebron]

If I’m being completely frank, my idea for the Stormrider evidence is that pre-patch wise we’ll get dangerous storms happening in certain zones of the old world, where we have to use our Stormrider mount to navigate the event and dispel it. Then when journey to the new land, the opening expansion event is a scenario with us traversing the storm then stopping it during the levelling so reinforcements can arrive. Past that, I don’t think the storm side of the expansion will be relevant and I don’t think it’ll be tied to the Elements or Elemental Lords as blatantly as people believe. For all we know Xal’atath is conjuring it using some dark magic.

So my speculation idea goes something like this:

- after awakening, Tyr sends us to investigate the fissure;
- we get a pre-patch, in which we learn from Wildhammers how to navigate through the storms on gryphons, as these seems to be the only mode of transportation capable of flying in storms (pointing to possible tragic end of the Erinethria);
- when we get to the new contintent, we discover a thriving dwarven society with a few kingdoms and mighty Khaz Algar as the main hub located in the center of the map;
- we discover that the similiarities between Algarians and "our" dwarves are not a mere coincidence - titans have "programmed" the earthrens, so it the end, it was their destiny (titans are bad bois );
- the fissure is the prison of the 5th Old God, which is located right below the Khaz Algar; the earthrens were able to seal the prison, built the city on top of it, but they paid the price of curse of flesh;
- the other major races are the mantid-like ant humanoids, which fit quite nicely to Old God themes, let's say ANTIDS, and some humans that evolved like Vrykuls did
- just like saronite is blood of Yogg-Saron, the "blood" of 5th Old God is very valuable material, so some dwarves want to mine deeper - as it happens, they are getting corrupted and eventually unlock the prison with the help of antids;
- Old God escapes and that enrages the elementals, who are the enemy of the Old Gods? they also hid the land with storms, so none can get in and mess with Old Gods, and they find it a massive threat, which actually is true;
- Thrall with the shaman-clan of dwarves help us to navigate through the conflict, some elementals and Iridkron work with the Old God and they become our secondary enemy;
- Then there's only antids, bad humans old-god-worshippers and the Old God itself left, but we lose the fight leading to 11.0 or something like that


Put Xal'atath somewhere and obviously a titan facility, right?
but that's how I envision the blueprint for the plotline

[Nightshade711]

I mentioned it before and I mention it again:

Blizzard needs to go more all out with earnable cosmetic rewards, like the 10.1 armor special effects or even the KSH Tier Set effects.

Make a big meta achievement and let that unlock a cool cosmetic customization reward for all races. Primalist Eyes, new skin colour, an aura, something.

Agreed. Earn-able cosmetics are always a big hit whenever blizzard focuses on it. Doing that for player customization would be a big win imo.
Eyes are probably the easiest to do, but auras could be neat and could probably be easy to do.

[Wangming]

- just like saronite is blood of Yogg-Saron, the "blood" of 5th Old God is very valuable material, so some dwarves want to mine deeper - as it happens, they are getting corrupted and eventually unlock the prison with the help of antids;

Oooo. Did dwarves dig too deep and find something nasty?

[Santandame]

Certainly possible. Thankfully we'll know one way or another soon enough.

Unfortunately I must drop out of this conversation for now because I already see some posters accusing me of spamming the thread.

I don’t believe you are spamming the wrong thread. Admittedly discussion with you can be quite frustrating at times because you haven’t been budging this speculation season but I’ll be the first to admit that the past few pages you have been a lot more amenable.

I honestly do struggle to follow your logic regarding the Stormrider mount with what’s been presented to you as well as why you think introducing a new pre-order mount that will undoubtedly have dynamic flying incorporated but will look silly when doing so because of the rig won’t be an issue.

I’ll concede to you that I do think the elements will play a role next expansion in some form. But I don’t think those elements will be along the core four which we typically deal with; fire, air, earth and water. I think spirit and decay will play a huge role. I also don’t think that the Storms aspect as of the expansion will be heavily related to the element of air as a theme. Merely as a plot device to explain why Avaloren(?) is so inaccessible. I think past the initial launch the storm theme will be downplayed too. I’m also of the opinion that the storm side of things could be something as simple as Xal’atath conjuring a storm via dark magic or Iridikron unleashing a storm of decay using Galakrond’s essence. I don’t think the mention of a storm automatically means elemental expansion inbound.

There’s every possibility I’m wrong. But in my opinion, and several others, we’ve just had our elemental expansion with fire, air, wind and water playing huge roles within it. It would feel redundant to continue that on in a major way. We have however not dealt with the element of spirit, or that of decay (in a meaningful way outside of Brackenhide and Galakrond’s essence which are both undeniably being continued over). All hints point towards Life being a major theme, and decay is the foil to that. That’s simply where I believe the elemental connection will extend to.

[xputurnameherex]

Arfus is from hard mode headless horseman

[Nebron]

Oooo. Did dwarves dig too deep and find something nasty?

Maybe it seems like a classic fantasy dwarvish thing to do, so why not

[Wangming]

Maybe it seems like a classic fantasy dwarvish thing to do, so why not

Oh definitely reads like something dwarves would do.

[Shadochi]

Are there no mods on this forum? The amount of times ppl in this thread go completely off-topic and forget that this an 11.0/DF SPECULATION thread….

They do make their presence known if its steers too much off topic. But otherwise this thread has been for the past decade a place where many discussions have taken place that start from speculating and comparing to other games, discussing possible future story moments but then veer off from speculation and the topic dies off after a day or two. Better to have it all in one megathread than a bunch of separate forum threads spinning off.

[Auxis]

Maybe it seems like a classic fantasy dwarvish thing to do, so why not

Oh definitely reads like something dwarves would do.

Have we ever had a case in the lore where Warcraft dwarves dug too deep and found something they shouldn't have?
Such a cliché trope that I don't think has been explored much in WoW.
I know they've dug and found Titan stuff; I mean really bad things.

[Santandame]

So my speculation idea goes something like this:

- after awakening, Tyr sends us to investigate the fissure;
- we get a pre-patch, in which we learn from Wildhammers how to navigate through the storms on gryphons, as these seems to be the only mode of transportation capable of flying in storms (pointing to possible tragic end of the Erinethria);
- when we get to the new contintent, we discover a thriving dwarven society with a few kingdoms and mighty Khaz Algar as the main hub located in the center of the map;
- we discover that the similiarities between Algarians and "our" dwarves are not a mere coincidence - titans have "programmed" the earthrens, so it the end, it was their destiny (titans are bad bois );
- the fissure is the prison of the 5th Old God, which is located right below the Khaz Algar; the earthrens were able to seal the prison, built the city on top of it, but they paid the price of curse of flesh;
- the other major races are the mantid-like ant humanoids, which fit quite nicely to Old God themes, let's say ANTIDS, and some humans that evolved like Vrykuls did
- just like saronite is blood of Yogg-Saron, the "blood" of 5th Old God is very valuable material, so some dwarves want to mine deeper - as it happens, they are getting corrupted and eventually unlock the prison with the help of antids;
- Old God escapes and that enrages the elementals, who are the enemy of the Old Gods? they also hid the land with storms, so none can get in and mess with Old Gods, and they find it a massive threat, which actually is true;
- Thrall with the shaman-clan of dwarves help us to navigate through the conflict, some elementals and Iridkron work with the Old God and they become our secondary enemy;
- Then there's only antids, bad humans old-god-worshippers and the Old God itself left, but we lose the fight leading to 11.0 or something like that


Put Xal'atath somewhere and obviously a titan facility, right?
but that's how I envision the blueprint for the plotline

That’s an interesting plot line and I could definitely see it happening. I agree that Tyr will play a part in us going west but I believe he won’t be forthcoming about it. I see storms hitting EK and Kalimdor in the pre patch and at this point Tyr gives in against his better judgement and informs us of how they’re appearing and where they’re coming from.

We fly to Avaloren/wherever it is, navigating the storm using our new stormriders. What we find is a bustling, thriving land completely unaffected by the Legion, Cataclysm etc; a land that is themed on Avalon. It’s a typical traditional fantasy landmass with a zone based on Camelot, Khaz Algar which is a storm ravaged land and a great city within deep fissures, a dark swamp zone, among others. This is the land that Xal’atath ruled and she’s re-establishing her foothold here.

I’m fairly confident it’s going to be a landmass teeming with life magic, the element of spirit, with decay being introduced to the land by Galakrond’s essence via Iridikron and Xal. Uldaz is likely here and what I imagine to be repurposed by the locals into the WoW version of Camelot. I think we’ll also get WoW’s interpretations of Merlin, Morgan (likely Xal), King Arthur, Excalibur, the Holy Grail, Knights of the Round Table etc. I think it’s going to hit on the head of many classic fantasy points because of the reception to SL, which is when this expansion will have begun to have been developed. Expect to see knights, wizards, witches, dragons, fae & fairies, ogres, giants etc.

I do genuinely think we’re finally going to get Halflings too.

The above is a combination of my own wants but also educated guesses based off evidence we have but also conjecture.

[Valysar]

Do we know of Khaz Algar is a snowy zone ?

[Nebron]

Have we ever had a case in the lore where Warcraft dwarves dug too deep and found something they shouldn't have?
Such a cliché trope that I don't think has been explored much in WoW.
I know they've dug and found Titan stuff; I mean really bad things.

Not sure about it, first thing that came to my mind, definitely because it's cliché, but I still find it cool

[Woggmer]

Have we ever had a case in the lore where Warcraft dwarves dug too deep and found something they shouldn't have?
Such a cliché trope that I don't think has been explored much in WoW.
I know they've dug and found Titan stuff; I mean really bad things.

Actually yes. But it was left as an unsolved mystery in Cata.

Bael Modan.

According to Classic lore, the Dwarves were excavating in sacred Tauren land, but one Dwarf is looking for this special crystal called the Tear of the Moon. The dwarf was getting a little desperate and seems eager to get the this crystal, to where on holding it.. it turned him into a trogg.

In Cata, the Alliance adventurer kills this Dwarf-turned-Trogg... and later has to go turn on the excavator to close of a tunnel because the Dwarves "unearthed something that should stay buried" and the excavator was set to cause a landslide in the tunnel to kill whatever was inside.

To this day, we still don't know what it was.

[Nebron]

Do we know of Khaz Algar is a snowy zone ?

I don't think so, not sure if anything is really known about it. Just some land having a fissure and after some time, after being exposed to what that fissure emanated with, earthrens sent for investigation became somehing relative to the dwarves we know.