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

[Sondrelk]

A few things.

1. It might not be the same people
2. Some people just don't like the direction retail took and want to retcon WoD and/or SL away.
3. Plenty of people still wan a world revamp. Chances are a Classic+ alternate scenario where the Cataclysm didn't happen would look a lot different than Azeroth revamped post Dragonflight.

At that point they might as well just remake the expansions and pitch them as new content. Like what someone said for a time travelling expansion set right after Vanilla.

Just have an expansion where you go back in time and go to Outland, except all the writing flaws are remedied, and the gameplay is much smoother, along with the gear looking much better.

Honestly you could do this with every expansion and some would probably be absolute goldmines.
Cataclysm without the lack of endgame. MoP without the post SoO drought. WoD with actual content. BfA with a competently told story. etc.

[Nymrohd]

I've seen people here defend every shitty decision by Blizzard. If you think that would phase people you are delusional. Sorry.

Look, Felplague will tell us how it is completely normal and we are all idiots to be angry but the fact that it would not phase everyone does not mean it would phase a lot of people. Unless you think Warcraft has been going steady with no fumbles and no impact in the player base . . .

[Yunravel]

What is this obsession people have with Classic+? This is becoming the new "World Revamp next expansion for sure bro!" or "Tinker next expansion bro!".
People wanted Classic because of the way it was, and now suddenly they want more stuff added to classic, removing the concept of.. you guessed it! Classic.

I will never understand that logic. First advocate "OMG #nochanges!!!" and then a few months later "OMG we demand more content!!!" One of these things is not like the other.

Note; I am not attacking you! I am not saying you are one of those, but it just confuses the hell out of me

You’re wrong, ppl always wanted classic+. Theres famous example online, wont name them. Adding old scrapped content doesnt make it less classic. What is classic is the feeling, the graphics, the ambiance, the leveling. Thats it

As long as Blizzard keep this things while adding zones like hyjal, quel’thalas tel abim etc. Its alright

[NikolaiShade]

What is this obsession people have with Classic+? This is becoming the new "World Revamp next expansion for sure bro!" or "Tinker next expansion bro!".
People wanted Classic because of the way it was, and now suddenly they want more stuff added to classic, removing the concept of.. you guessed it! Classic.

I will never understand that logic. First advocate "OMG #nochanges!!!" and then a few months later "OMG we demand more content!!!" One of these things is not like the other.

Note; I am not attacking you! I am not saying you are one of those, but it just confuses the hell out of me

Classic was a good experiment, I alays loved history and going to museums is one of the first things I do when I travel in other countries, so I can appreciate the idea of keeping Classic as a sort of "exhibition" about WoW origins. then they made TBC and Wrath servers, then hardcore and season of mastery, now Cata or Classic+... It's just a nostalgia fest without much reason (other than financial ones).

[Marlamin]

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.

We have some additional hints;

Both the S.A.F.E Pilot and Survey Bot battle pets are old and were added in 9.2.0 PTR (but key was made around/between 9.1/9.1.5 PTR), the same patch as the BlizzCon 2023 mount that came out yesterday, so they are unlikely to have to do anything with future content, at least not in a manner that could have been intended at the time.

The Fyrn battle pet and "unknown mount A" (no achievement leaked for that one) share several assets that are also shared by other models with a "windy" theme (air/storm elementals, primalist wind totems, some wind spells), so that is indicative for a theme as well as a relation between the two even though they are encrypted under separate keys.

The Storm Rider achievements (and the likely 6 dragon races for it), Squally and Algarian Stormrider share an encryption key that also has a character boost, multiple in-game store assets and other things usual for what would be an encrypted package to release when expansion pre-orders come out.

As for my worldbuilding. I've been doing worldbuilding and writing for like 15ish years (tho never finished anything but hopefully changing that in the near-to-moderate future). But outside of that I'm currently using the world (and universe) I created to run various D&D and Pathfinder campaigns and oneshots (think so far I had 4-5 campaigns, 3 currently ongoing), and a bunch of oneshots or short stories that last a couple sessions. So come November (NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month) I plan on finally writing something however bad the first draft may be from start to finish). As for the theme of the worldbuilding, on a cosmic scale it has both fantasy and scifi, but for the world where the campaigns take place its mostly high and dark fantasy with some scifi sometimes seeping in (wasn't originally the plan but happened based on player choices).

That sounds awesome, do drop us a note or add it to your signature or something when you have something to show off.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Let's say Ogres are added to Classic+ it would be a blood bath

Oh yeah, it would be a bloodbath, i think i would just spit on my screen at whoevers is on stage "presenting" this bad idea, even tho i would have to clean it later.

Im also not really aboard on these "classic+" ideas.

[Wangming]

Look, Felplague will tell us how it is completely normal and we are all idiots to be angry but the fact that it would not phase everyone does not mean it would phase a lot of people. Unless you think Warcraft has been going steady with no fumbles and no impact in the player base . . .

This is a rhetorical question and we both know it. You are talkin about a guy with Emet-Selch for a profile pic.
I'm just saying Blizzard is prone to half arsed measures and there are plenty of people who follow them regardless. Good patch cadence is all it takes for them to be forgiven.

[Xilurm]

Blizz could easily fix WC3 if they just put a team on it and gave them a few months. But of course during that time they ain't making money so...

[Sondrelk]

Classic+ as new endgame content post Naxxramas or even.. alternative expansion are totally ridicolous ideas. Barely anyone reach that far.

Classic is strongest at the beginning. Only sensible thing to do with Classic Era is improving leveling experience (especially around 20-50 level) and launch it as Season 2 with normal and hardcore servers. Could be new quests, mobs, hell maybe even extra zone, but it can't be "oh, finish all that 20th year old shit AGAIN before you even touch new content".

As I said above. You either have the Cataclysm problem of 80% of the new content requiring levelling a new character to experience properly. Or it's the TBC problem of making all the old content obsolete.
A problem even more so in Classic, where Transmog is not a thing, and cosmetic collections are massively hamstrumg by adhering to old ways of doing things.

At that point, just make them in Retail where you have more options for experimental gameplay modes. As an example an enhanced version of Chromie Time that makes the gameplay much more old fashioned.

[Murlocos]

Runescape is your closest comparison for how two diverging games might play out, and even that comparison isn't great. OSRS eclipsed RS3 ages ago and is undoubtedly the main game now between the two, but I'd argue Runescape circa 2004 and RS3 are more fundamentally different games than vanilla WoW and modern retail are. Furthermore, the more sandbox nature of RS's design makes it easier to integrate new content into without totally obsoleting existing content. WoW would need a fundamental design shift to not just go down the road of Classic+ essentially being a take two and praying the existing expansion system still works.

I think it's a far riskier proposition than some expect. OSRS was able to succeed in part because it had an extremely dedicated team from the jump that had a considerable amount of goodwill with the community that they were careful to maintain. One of these devs was filling the roles of game designer, quest designer/writer, and composer simultaneously at one point. I'm not sure if Blizzard has staff that could fill similar shoes and have enough goodwill with the community to act unfettered. Imagining WoW being developed with the polling system would be quite the sight, though.

Incidentally, while the RS split was almost entirely gameplay-focused, RS3 was in the midst of having the players pal around with gods and cosmic entities and sending the power creep and scope through the roof, while OSRS avoided going down that same path with its new story content (thus far) and deliberately kept its writing more grounded and lower scale in comparison. Food for thought!

[Magistrate]

Well the only thing we see... is the texture. We dont know how that maps onto a model, and honestly imo I find the multple beaks very odd. It might be some kind of weird amalgamation like Marrowgar/Urzul or something. It does look either haunted, moontouched or corrupted... basically not your typical gryphon.

It could be textures for different beak options and this is just how the texture files show it. Idk how they did that with dragonriding mounts texture files wise.

[NikolaiShade]

The Fyrn battle pet and "unknown mount A" (no achievement leaked for that one) share several assets that are also shared by other models with a "windy" theme (air/storm elementals, primalist wind totems, some wind spells), so that is indicative for a theme as well as a relation between the two even though they are encrypted under separate keys.

The Storm Rider achievements (and the likely 6 dragon races for it), Squally and Algarian Stormrider share an encryption key that also has a character boost, multiple in-game store assets and other things usual for what would be an encrypted package to release when expansion pre-orders come out.

Crazy idea, could Fyrn and mount A be items you get with the expansions but usable in classic? Sorta a downgraded version of the Algarian Stormrider

[Marlamin]

Crazy idea, could Fyrn and mount A be items you get with the expansions buy usable in classic? Sorta a downgraded version of the Algarian Stormrider

They're in retail and not in Classic and unknown mount A has indications of dragonriding support, so pretty unlikely.

It could be textures for different beak options and this is just how the texture files show it. Idk how they did that with dragonriding mounts texture files wise.

Those are stored separately as they use the character customization system (that the encrypted mount, presumably the Algarian Stormrider, also does). It's still possible they'd do it on the same texture, but seeing the mount has more customization options than e.g. the 10.2 mount, there should be far more of those textures. The resolution of the gryphon texture is also relatively low compared to the other customizable mounts, so I'm still not too sure it is connected although it could just be them doing a lower resolution customizable mount for the first time.

[milkmustache]

The Storm Rider achievements (and the likely 6 dragon races for it), Squally and Algarian Stormrider share an encryption key that also has a character boost, multiple in-game store assets and other things usual for what would be an encrypted package to release when expansion pre-orders come out.

Out of curiosity, is there any indication for how many Traders Tenders are included in the Heroic encryption?

[Marlamin]

Out of curiosity, is there any indication for how many Traders Tenders are included in the Heroic encryption?

No, that would largely be done through Battle.net as Tender is a Battle.net virtual currency, not a WoW currency, the only thing the client might have as an indication is the amount being shown in the in-game store textures, but that isn't visible when they're encrypted.

[Chickat]

What do we think about this Tempest thing? Legit?

[JMitchy96]

What do we think about this Tempest thing? Legit?

It's likely just an internal project codename for "something".

[PotHockets]

What is this obsession people have with Classic+? This is becoming the new "World Revamp next expansion for sure bro!" or "Tinker next expansion bro!".
People wanted Classic because of the way it was, and now suddenly they want more stuff added to classic, removing the concept of.. you guessed it! Classic.

I will never understand that logic. First advocate "OMG #nochanges!!!" and then a few months later "OMG we demand more content!!!" One of these things is not like the other.

Note; I am not attacking you! I am not saying you are one of those, but it just confuses the hell out of me

People want new content with systems and gameplay they enjoy. It's not that hard to understand.

[xputurnameherex]

No, that would largely be done through Battle.net as Tender is a Battle.net virtual currency, not a WoW currency, the only thing the client might have as an indication is the amount being shown in the in-game store textures, but that isn't visible when they're encrypted.

it was datamined a while ago that the regular version would have 500, 750 for the heroic, and 1k for the epic

[ro9ue]

What do we think about this Tempest thing? Legit?

Idk, everyone is expecting Elemental/Storm/Earth stuff in this thread, but they also use storm-related verbiage for corporate branding/overarching Blizzard franchises too. It might be it, but I'm obviously not going to weigh it as much as the Heroic: Algarian Stormrider with gryphon texture floating around when it comes to speculating.