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

[username993720]

Going by past experiences, if Flying was introduced in the Burning Crusade, integrated into Wrath of the Lich King and was the catalyst for the Azeroth revamp we got in Cataclysm, then i have a hunch that Dragonriding, introduced in Dragonflight, would carry on to the next expansion's continent and will spark a revamp the expansion afterward to accomodate the Eastern Kingdoms' and Kalimdor's terrain to the feature.

What do you guys think?

[Shadowferal]

I think this thread is already been done...
The only thing that will provoke interest for me is WoW 2.0.

[Zulggun]

You really think they will remake whole 2 continents plus northrend and maybe outland for an expansion? They can barely do 5 zones novadays.

[username993720]

You really think they will remake whole 2 continents plus northrend and maybe outland for an expansion? They can barely do 5 zones novadays.

No one said Northrend or Outland. Only the 2 main continents, like in Cataclysm.

[Shadowferal]

Reshaping the World

Dragonflight 10.X Patches & 11.0 Speculation Thread

....just saying.

[Biomega]

They'll never remake the world on the level of what Cataclysm did. It burned them badly because it cost an inordinate amount of resources for something that never really paid off. The work it takes to remake entire continents is staggering, while the content this creates is mostly ancillary - it's not like the entirety of a new expansion would take place in every single part of the two continents.

It just doesn't work out in terms of the economics. Barring something like WoW2 which would be a completely new thing and doesn't really count, we'll never see a worldwide revamp again.

[username993720]

They'll never remake the world on the level of what Cataclysm did. It burned them badly because it cost an inordinate amount of resources for something that never really paid off. The work it takes to remake entire continents is staggering, while the content this creates is mostly ancillary - it's not like the entirety of a new expansion would take place in every single part of the two continents.

It just doesn't work out in terms of the economics. Barring something like WoW2 which would be a completely new thing and doesn't really count, we'll never see a worldwide revamp again.

So, you don't believe they would shape the continents to match Dragonriding?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The dev team can't even release expansions with more than 4 levelling zones anymore, what makes you think they can remake two entire continents?

Kalimdor and the EK had their stories told. Besides, any old stuff that does get updated gets watered down milquetoast versions that disappoints. Oldtime Warcraft fans won't be satisfied so no point in wasting everyone's time. I'd very much prefer to move on and see new things. New races and cultures and high fantasy environments. And I mean actually new worlds like Pandaria and Shadowlands, not stuff like the Dragon Isles which rehashes boring old stuff like dragons and titan architecture and centaur and vrykul.

[Biomega]

So, you don't believe they would shape the continents to match Dragonriding?

Never.

If they do put in dragonriding in the old world, they'll just leave things as-is and deal with it. You don't seem to realize how ridiculously expensive it is to remake an entire map.

The old meme of "at the cost of a raid tier" comes to mind, though in reality it'd likely cost MORE than one tier worth of development resources.

[Super Dickmann]

Here you just perfectly summarized the biggest problem with WoW storytelling. Thank you! It is not an option on mmo champ. but please, have my like..

That's one of the main reasons the orc questline got the reception it did. Whatever its issue, it had a macro focus. The fact that the orcish cast is composed almost entirely of non-entities means that the focus is who they are relative to their broader group which makes the world a bigger deal. No one cares about Gorfax and Jorin's only character trait is his last name, but the Dragonmaw and the Bleeding Hollow are great and they're what's actually in the center. Ditto it's the one of the few quests in the entire game where orcish shamanism is more than an incidental plot backdrop.

@Le Conceptuel

Stories work best when they work with what's actually there rather than what we wish was there. The orc story is strong for the same reason the Cataclysm Forsaken stuff is strong - it works off of what the race actually has. Much like how the Cataclysm Forsaken didn't sweep the fact that they were dicked out of participating in their main vendetta in Wrath and have no main purpose now but made it the entire premise of the plot, so too does the orc heritage questline hinge entirely on the fact that the MU orcs have been culturally vacant blobs taking loss after loss to its major characters the inciting incident. The orcs decide to get back in touch with their heritage proactively in an on-screen event based on what actually took place to them, there's no unearned off-screen handwave to the premise. Even my biggest issues with it, how toothless some of the clan renditions (Blackrock, Warsong, Shattered Hand) are and how nice everyone is to each other follow the same vibe of a race out of touch with its cultural origins trying to put them back together from scratch and desperately wanting to have at least one straight celebration. The grounding of the Kosh'harg as being a place of truce and conciliation also serves the same purpose.

The human storyline doesn't hinge off of any of these loose threads or what actually happened but retroactively claims something entirely different happened which fundamentally changed the status. I can't actually tell @Varodoc about Turalyon's leadership or lack thereof because there's precisely as much backing for him being seen as a gracious regent to him being an Oliver Cromwell figure. Or to him dedicating the kingdom to worshiping the outer gods, fuck knows, his reign has 0 lore attached. Now, Stormwind is handicapped by how unlike orcs it doesn't have much background to work with. You also can't really make the base human heritage questline be about uniting the kingdoms given that most of the kingdoms are either inexplicably neutral (lol Dalaran), separate playable races (Gilneas, Kul Tiras) or entirely replaced population wise, destroyed or otherwise closer to an enemy (Alterac, Stromgarde). A questline focused on having all of the remains of the human and allied kingdom fix up the kingdom and show well it works as the nexus of the Alliance might be a beat you could do I suppose.

[Varodoc]

That's one of the main reasons the orc questline got the reception it did. Whatever its issue, it had a macro focus. The fact that the orcish cast is composed almost entirely of non-entities means that the focus is who they are relative to their broader group which makes the world a bigger deal. No one cares about Gorfax and Jorin's only character trait is his last name, but the Dragonmaw and the Bleeding Hollow are great and they're what's actually in the center. Ditto it's the one of the few quests in the entire game where orcish shamanism is more than an incidental plot backdrop.

@Le Conceptuel

Stories work best when they work with what's actually there rather than what we wish was there. The orc story is strong for the same reason the Cataclysm Forsaken stuff is strong - it works off of what the race actually has. Much like how the Cataclysm Forsaken didn't sweep the fact that they were dicked out of participating in their main vendetta in Wrath and have no main purpose now but made it the entire premise of the plot, so too does the orc heritage questline hinge entirely on the fact that the MU orcs have been culturally vacant blobs taking loss after loss to its major characters the inciting incident. The orcs decide to get back in touch with their heritage proactively in an on-screen event based on what actually took place to them, there's no unearned off-screen handwave to the premise. Even my biggest issues with it, how toothless some of the clan renditions (Blackrock, Warsong, Shattered Hand) are and how nice everyone is to each other follow the same vibe of a race out of touch with its cultural origins trying to put them back together from scratch and desperately wanting to have at least one straight celebration. The grounding of the Kosh'harg as being a place of truce and conciliation also serves the same purpose.

The human storyline doesn't hinge off of any of these loose threads or what actually happened but retroactively claims something entirely different happened which fundamentally changed the status. I can't actually tell @Varodoc about Turalyon's leadership or lack thereof because there's precisely as much backing for him being seen as a gracious regent to him being an Oliver Cromwell figure. Or to him dedicating the kingdom to worshiping the outer gods, fuck knows, his reign has 0 lore attached. Now, Stormwind is handicapped by how unlike orcs it doesn't have much background to work with. You also can't really make the base human heritage questline be about uniting the kingdoms given that most of the kingdoms are either inexplicably neutral (lol Dalaran), separate playable races (Gilneas, Kul Tiras) or entirely replaced population wise, destroyed or otherwise closer to an enemy (Alterac, Stromgarde). A questline focused on having all of the remains of the human and allied kingdom fix up the kingdom and show well it works as the nexus of the Alliance might be a beat you could do I suppose.

Except that you can actually tell that Turalyon is doing very good as a Regent;

We know for a fact that:

1) He rules with the support of the House of Nobles. This automatically means that another Defias insurgency is avoided because there's no double agent in the House of Nobles to weaken the Monarchy from within.

2) He has successfully defended Stormwind from rampaging Scourge with only minimal casualties in Lakeshire. Lordaeron was destroyed by a controlled Scourge, meanwhile Stormwind survived a mindless Scourge with minimal casualties (and according to Terenas of Lordaeron, a mindless Scourge would destroy the world), so just let that sink in, how effective Turalyon was in the defence of Stormwind from the mindless Scourge.

3) He has been ruling the kingdom for 5 years by now, 3 of those years were peaceful and stable (Timeskip).

4) As far as international affairs are concerned, he strengthened relations with the Horde by going to Thalyssra's wedding and then by ensuring that the Alliance would work alongside the Horde and the Dracthyr in the Dragon Isles;

5) The nation is stable, this is evidenced by the fact that this new Defias attack was quickly destroyed before it could accomplish anything, and the modern Defias were no longer a vast organization employing even goblin, ogre, and gnolls, but an insignificant gang of thugs and thieves led by a crazed nobleman.

6) With the ultimate defeat and destruction of the Defias, as well as the redemption and atonement work of Vanessa VanCleef, the last internal threat to the kingdom has been eliminated.

In conclusion: Turalyon is the best leader Stormwind has had in WoW.

And it's funny how people here acting like Stormwind being ruled by a Light user and a Void user is weird... last I checked, doesn't humanity have a whole magical kingdom ruled by heavy Magic users and even a DRAGON ASPECT? Why is it suddenly so weird that Stormwind is ruled by a Naaru-empowered man? When another human kingdom is literally ruled by a dragon aspect, and even another human kingdom is ruled by a talking dog?

[Wangming]

Alexstraza's models never looked attractive ingame. Her new outfit looks overdesigned and like it's from a completely different game than WoW. Out of game, she had some decent to good fanart in her original outfit.

Out of game every fictional character has good fanart you can browse one handed. What I don't like about Alexstraza's look is how nothing about it says 'Aspect of Life' to me. Yes, she is red enough to be a red dragon, but she could be the Aspect of Taco Bell, for all I know.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

Stories work best when they work with what's actually there rather than what we wish was there. The orc story is strong for the same reason the Cataclysm Forsaken stuff is strong - it works off of what the race actually has. Much like how the Cataclysm Forsaken didn't sweep the fact that they were dicked out of participating in their main vendetta in Wrath and have no main purpose now but made it the entire premise of the plot, so too does the orc heritage questline hinge entirely on the fact that the MU orcs have been culturally vacant blobs taking loss after loss to its major characters the inciting incident. The orcs decide to get back in touch with their heritage proactively in an on-screen event based on what actually took place to them, there's no unearned off-screen handwave to the premise. Even my biggest issues with it, how toothless some of the clan renditions (Blackrock, Warsong, Shattered Hand) are and how nice everyone is to each other follow the same vibe of a race out of touch with its cultural origins trying to put them back together from scratch and desperately wanting to have at least one straight celebration. The grounding of the Kosh'harg as being a place of truce and conciliation also serves the same purpose.

The human storyline doesn't hinge off of any of these loose threads or what actually happened but retroactively claims something entirely different happened which fundamentally changed the status. I can't actually tell @Varodoc about Turalyon's leadership or lack thereof because there's precisely as much backing for him being seen as a gracious regent to him being an Oliver Cromwell figure. Or to him dedicating the kingdom to worshiping the outer gods, fuck knows, his reign has 0 lore attached. Now, Stormwind is handicapped by how unlike orcs it doesn't have much background to work with. You also can't really make the base human heritage questline be about uniting the kingdoms given that most of the kingdoms are either inexplicably neutral (lol Dalaran), separate playable races (Gilneas, Kul Tiras) or entirely replaced population wise, destroyed or otherwise closer to an enemy (Alterac, Stromgarde). A questline focused on having all of the remains of the human and allied kingdom fix up the kingdom and show well it works as the nexus of the Alliance might be a beat you could do I suppose.

I think I'm most inclined to agree with the idea of reuniting the remaining Human kingdoms as a potential thread to explore—something about the overall strength of humanity and the travesties it's overcome. Rather than focus on Stormwind's heritage specifically, the heritage explored is that of humanity as a whole. This would involve representatives of each of the remaining kingdoms (Turalyon for Lordaeron, Katherine Proudmoore for Kul Tiras, Genn for Gilneas etc.) coming together in reminiscence of the Second War, pursuing some sort of great project to focus on unifying the kingdoms in promotion of Turalyon's objectives of reclaiming lost territory. Some kind of grandiose festival thrown not only for the royalty, but also the citizenry, military, and even clergy and intellectuals of these kingdoms would be a rather nice idea and would be a very uplifting angle to attack this concept from. If we want to focus further on the history of Stormwind in particular, the history of the Alliance and how contingent it was on Stormwind standing against the Horde would be told, and would be succeeded shortly by a saccharine little lesson about how Stormwind's strength of a nation isn't in its military, treasury, or institutions, but in its web of trusted allies, and that its power is in its capacity to organize and inspire all these disparate kingdoms and races. It would be a fairly sweet thing that would make players feel proud to be Human. Since we need an obligatory combat sequence, this would manifest through a flashback scene (like the Blood Elf heritage questline) to the siege of Stormwind in the First War framed as a speech by an ancient veteran of the war. He would be applauded by Turalyon, who would himself give a long-winded speech on why he, as a citizen of Lordaeron, admires Stormwind for leading humanity through the dark and into the dawn. Cue cheering, a few "stay a while and listen" lore dumps to elaborate on Turalyon's regency, the state of Stormwind's economy and society, and a few recent events, and a nice little feast. It concludes with a ceremony in which Turalyon knights the player, giving them a "Sir" or "Dame" title and the Stormwind heritage.

The quests for this alternative sequence of events could be called:

The Spirit of Humanity
A New Dawn and Old Histories
For Old Acquaintance
Stay a While and Listen
Of Blood and Honor
Go With Honor, Friend

[Wangming]

Except that you can actually tell that Turalyon is doing very good as a Regent;

We know for a fact that:

1) He rules with the support of the House of Nobles. This automatically means that another Defias insurgency is avoided because there's no double agent in the House of Nobles to weaken the Monarchy from within.

The Heritage Armor quest is literally about a corrupt noble who wants to take over Stormwind. Try again

2) He has successfully defended Stormwind from rampaging Scourge with only minimal casualties in Lakeshire. Lordaeron was destroyed by a controlled Scourge, meanwhile Stormwind survived a mindless Scourge with minimal casualties (and according to Terenas of Lordaeron, a mindless Scourge would destroy the world), so just let that sink in, how effective Turalyon was in the defence of Stormwind from the mindless Scourge.

You misunderstand. The mindless Scourge isn't stronger than the controlled. It just has a single minded goal. Destruction.

3) He has been ruling the kingdom for 5 years by now, 3 of those years were peaceful and stable (Timeskip).

I mean with no Lich King, or Burning Legion, all Old Gods dead and everyone's eyes on the literal Underworld, it is easy to stay peaceful.

4) As far as international affairs are concerned, he strengthened relations with the Horde by going to Thalyssra's wedding and then by ensuring that the Alliance would work alongside the Horde and the Dracthyr in the Dragon Isles;

I'll give you this one. However going to a party you were specifically invited to isn't really the hight of diplomatic genius.

5) The nation is stable, this is evidenced by the fact that this new Defias attack was quickly destroyed before it could accomplish anything, and the modern Defias were no longer a vast organization employing even goblin, ogre, and gnolls, but an insignificant gang of thugs and thieves led by a crazed nobleman.

The Defias are no longer a vast organization because they were decimated twice during Varian's reign.

6) With the ultimate defeat and destruction of the Defias, as well as the redemption and atonement work of Vanessa VanCleef, the last internal threat to the kingdom has been eliminated.

That is more the work of the player character and Shaw. Had nothing to do with Turalyon.

In conclusion: Turalyon is the best leader Stormwind has had in WoW.

You are grasping at straws, friend. I understand what you are trying to do, but none of these are really as good as you might think. When there are actual credible threats to Stormwind and there is a very much hostile Horde where making peace actually requires more work, THEN we can see how good he is.

[Zulggun]

No one said Northrend or Outland. Only the 2 main continents, like in Cataclysm.

Doesn't matter, Kalimdor itself is like 20 zones already. There is no way they will update even one of the continents to be anything like Dragon Isles.

[kranur]

So, you don't believe they would shape the continents to match Dragonriding?

All they have to do is allow the DF mounts to be used everywhere. No reshape needed.

[Varodoc]

The Heritage Armor quest is literally about a corrupt noble who wants to take over Stormwind. Try again

A disgraced noble who did not have any support in the House of Nobles (hence why he had to resort to working with petty thugs) and was using a special magical amulet to augment his powers, mind-control people, and further descend into insanity.

So not a relevant example to bring up at all.

You misunderstand. The mindless Scourge isn't stronger than the controlled. It just has a single minded goal. Destruction.

King Terenas literally said that it would become an "EVEN GREATER THREAT" without the Lich King and Blizzard confirmed his claims when Shadowlands was announced.

So Turalyon defended his kingdom from an even greater Scourge than the one that invaded Lordaeron, Quel'Thalas, and Dalaran, and he did so with minimal casualties, localized mostly in Lakeshire.

I mean with no Lich King, or Burning Legion, all Old Gods dead and everyone's eyes on the literal Underworld, it is easy to stay peaceful.

We have no Lich King, no Burning Legion, no Old Gods, no evil hellish force from the Underworld in our world, and yet we're at war and we've always been at war irl.

Beyond that simple fact, The idea that humans will not fight each other without some external threat to unite them is easily disproven by the source material, where it is suggested that the Human kingdoms may have descended into war if it wasn't for the Horde uniting them. So the moment when there is no external, uniting threat is precisely when the risk of human conflict is highest.

It is human nature to fight, there has been no human conflict under Turalyon, so Turalyon is a good leader, it's pretty simple to understand.

I'll give you this one. However going to a party you were specifically invited to isn't really the hight of diplomatic genius.

Turalyon could have just sent delegated the task to someone else, who would go there in his stead (like Jaina did), instead he decided to go personally, recognizing the value of personally strengthening bonds with the Horde Council.

The Defias are no longer a vast organization because they were decimated twice during Varian's reign.

Irrelevant, Turalyon still ruled well enough that people didn't feel like joining the Defias anymore (except for petty thugs who were insignificant).

And Varian, while a heroic king, mishandled the economy and resulted in the biggest economic crisis in history, while there is no recorded economic crisis under Turalyon.

That is more the work of the player character and Shaw. Had nothing to do with Turalyon.

You can literally make the exact same argument for Varian lmfao, he did nothing against the Defias, that was all the PC, SI:7 Investigation, and the People's Militia.

When there are actual credible threats to Stormwind and there is a very much hostile Horde where making peace actually requires more work, THEN we can see how good he is.

The fact that there are no threats to Stormwind doesn't make Turalyon a bad leader lol... it makes him a good leader. Because no one is threatening Stormwind under his rule.

It is you who is grasping at straws, why do you want to deny that Turalyon is a very good and beloved leader? The people literally built a statue in his honour at the city's gates. He kept the kingdom safe during its initial reconstruction and safeguarded the throne for the young Varian Wrynn (as he reminds the player). Why die on this hill? Turalyon has already proven himself as a very capable statesman, who is also beloved by the people he rules.

[Wangming]

it's not like the entirety of a new expansion would take place in every single part of the two continents.
.

Well that seems like a problem they need to solve.

[Nymrohd]

Out of game every fictional character has good fanart you can browse one handed. What I don't like about Alexstraza's look is how nothing about it says 'Aspect of Life' to me. Yes, she is red enough to be a red dragon, but she could be the Aspect of Taco Bell, for all I know.

I mean, if I did Alex, I'd do a fertility goddess look. So if not actively pregnant, at least thicc.

[Lupinemancer]

I think a Revamp of the Old World is what the game needs. Maybe in a future expansion. The new Human and Orc Heritage Armor Questlines made me want more focus on the cultures and lifestyles of the various Races we play as, and some Zones, especially Azuremyst Isle and Quel'Thalas, is in serious need of an overhaul.