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

[Sondrelk]

Maybe this topic was talked about, but why isn't there more new datamining for Trading post items in patch like 10.1?
I went up to check some models that were already available to see on wowhead dressing room, but now they're invisible, is it because Blizzard friendly asked sites like Wowhead, mmochampion to not cover them that much or they blocked access to visible models?

Wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard simply encrypt those models, or even don't bother adding them until the month they are added.
Many of them are recolours of existing armors and weapons, so wouldn't be surprising if many of the Trading Post items are already in-game and simply renamed.

[Wangming]

Which is a good thing - the fun of the trading post is to not know what's up the next month, datamining kinda destroys this. It's basically like knowing your christmas presents beforehand ...

True, but there could be hints hidden even there. Like the Worgen and Goblin tease back in the day.

[Shadowferal]

And here I thought that going along with "Shadowlands" not existing was the preference.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I finished the Dracthyr starting questline and the Waking Shores, then got derailed by pet battles. Got to level 69. Then joined a rare train in the Forbidden reach for an hour and dinged 70. Rather frustrated that I couldn't click on the teleporter up to the rare or open certain chests because I was level 69. I guess I was sorta enjoying the moment to moment questing experience, but I wasn't really invested in the story or excited in discovering more of the setting, and the music is forgettable. The only song I remember was the ukulele music from the first town in Waking Shores, and even then I wouldn't add it to my favorite's playlist. Felt the same way about BFA where I stalled out after the first zone and then did Island Expeditions to level cap. I haven't felt super engrossed in an expansion's levelling experience since WoD. Awesome story, cool setting and visuals, and a killer soundtrack.

I'm also getting performance issues in the Dragon Isles, particularly Valdrakken. I have a Nvidia 3070 Ti, and I am getting 40-50 FPS. Historically WoW's performance sucks in foilage heavy areas such as Val'sharah, Suramar, or Ardenweald, but I'm getting 40-50 FPS being out in grass plains with no trees around like the Waking Shores or the Ohn'ahran Plains.

Anyway, thoughts as I played through the expansion thus far:

Click on thumbnails for fullsized image





The Forbidden Reach (Dracthyr starting zone)

Why are the Dracthyr straight up better than the Drakkonoids? Did the other Aspects simply not invest as much effort into their dragonmen as Neltharion did?




The Dracthyr are fervently loyal to Neltharion, the Black Dragon Aspect. They awake expecting orders from Neltharion to arrive any moment. So why are the Dracthyr immediately standoffish when two Black Dragons arrive? Shouldn't they be expecting them to be messengers? Wrathion and Ebyssian should be able to easily take command of these soldiers by saying "we're the sons of Neltharion".




What promises? This comes out of nowhere. No one else exhibited any resentment towards the Aspects, least of all Neltharion, who everyone seems to revere.

Now that I think about it, Deathwing is probably the most recurring villain in Warcraft. He was in Warcraft 2, several Knaak novels (War of the Ancients Trilogy and Day of the Dragon). He's around during vanilla as Lord Prestor. Then stars in Cataclysm. Then showed up in the Dawn of the Aspects novel. Then shows up again as a ghost/flashback in Legion. Then shows up again as another ghost/flashback in Shadowlands. And now shows up again here.




Why is Khadgar isolating himself in Karazhan? The last I saw him, he was a member of the Council of Six. He should be in Dalaran surrounded by other people, conferring with the other five councilmembers, speaking with representatives from across Azeroth, handing out assignments, maybe teaching students.




Kalecgos' voice does not fit his appearance at all.

I don't understand why if something terrible had happened, why Kalecgos would first run to Khadgar for help. Kalecgos and Khadgar never had a connection. I guess they were both members of Council of Six during Legion, but why go to Khadgar over any other councilmember? Kalecgos had a closer connection to Jaina, so why go to Khadgar over her? And when it comes to dealing with elemental dragons, why go to a wizard over, say, a shaman, who would be in tune with the elemental forces that are relevant to this crisis? Perhaps a shaman that the Aspects already have a working relationship since they last fought another wild dragon?

Is Khadgar really going to be our main NPC for this expansion? For a third expansion? He had his four years in the limelight during WoD and Legion. I'd rather see someone else.





The Waking Shores

Sendrax's voice and demeanor was inappropriate for a Drakonid.




*salutes*




Alexstraza's new outfit is overdesigned from the back. Too much detail, too much going on.

The Ruby Life Pools area looks great. The unique fantasy flowers, the red leaves dropping from the trees overhead, the light outlines on the pools of water, the kids running around. Too bad it makes the game stutter at 40-50 FPS even though I have a 3070 Ti.








I spent a couple hours flying around grabbing all of the dragon riding glpyhs when I started encountering visual bugs. /reload did not fix it. Yes, I scanned my game files and it did not need to be repaired. Yes, my drivers are up to date. Hopefully this gets fixed. EDIT: it would appear that Directx 12 is the problem. Regressing to Directx 11 fixes it.

I've obtained all of the glyphs. Dragon riding feels exactly like I predicted when it was first unveiled last year. It doesn't feel as good as GW2 riding, where the flying mounts there had far more robust animations that sold the act of flying, whereas WoW's dragonriding mounts do not and have some pretty janky transistions. Also doesn't help that WoW does not have a dive button, so you can't see the picturesque horizon while descending; you have to angle your camera towards the ground.

Another issue with Dragonriding is that once you have all the glyphs, you just spam spacebar and soar high over the maps, so far away from assets on the ground that it feels like you are flying slowly under an unmoving skybox. This wasn't an issue in GW2 because it was very, very difficult to gain more height than you started with, so you were almost always had assets flying past overhead. Perhaps if there was more stuff in the air, like clouds to fly through, floating islands, anima threads, airship fleets, etc, you would feel like you are going fast. I saw that the next patch is introducing a ground effect talent that gives you vigor for flying close to the ground, so it seems like Blizzard recgnoizes this problem is going to try to encourage players to not soar high above over the maps.



Guild Wars 2


WoW Dragonflight

I like that the Dragonriding mounts have a summon animation where they fly down out of the sky. I would have also liked a dismount animation like in GW2 where rather than the mount instantly disappearing, it flew away. Would have been even more immersive.

I don't understand why mortal races like humans and dwarves and trolls are working for the Primalists. AFAIK the Primalists thought that the pre-Titan world that was ruled by the Elementals was cool and wants to revert to that. Wouldn't that result in the demise of mortal civilization? Unless the Incarnates have told the mortals "nah you guys will survive under our rule" offscreen. The game doesn't explain why there are hundreds of people volunteering to join the Primalists' forces. The WoW story has been going on for 15 years. During that time, the Dragonflights have been instrumental in defending mortal civilization, be it from the Scourge, Ragnaros, Deathwing, the Legion, the Emerald Nightmare, the old gods, and so on. The dragonflights should be firmly entrenched in the public consciousness as forces of good, and quite formidable that anyone would think twice of antagonizing them. And the Titans saved Azeroth from the old gods and Sargeras! Why would people think that the Titan's influence is bad?

The Primalists (as in the mortals) would've made more sense if they weren't a new faction out of nowhere, but were just Twilight's Hammer remnants. The Primal Incarnates are adjacent to the Elemental Lords/old gods so shifting over to trying to liberate and pay homage to them makes sense given that the old gods are dead and the elemental lords have been replaced with more benevolent beings. They already tampered with dragon eggs during Cata so this is just more of the same for them.




What a pleasant surprise. Didn't expect to see him again. Guess he's Wrathion's personal chef/bartender now? Did he sell the inn to someone else, or is it abandoned and the Veiled Stair is no longer populated now that Madam Goya also moved on too?

I've noticed that there are Pandaren in Wrathion's army. I guess that after the Sha were vanquished, the Shado-Pan found that there wasn't that much to do now that the great threat they trained all their lives to fight was gone. Maybe some of them joined the Blacktalons. Also interesting to see a Draenei in the Blacktalons too. Looks like Wrathion has their vote of confidence as defender of Azeroth.




You haven't been paying attention.




Another strange visual bug, this time related to quest triggers or phasing. I was having difficulty clicking on the correct versions of the NPCs. I was worried that this was the part where I pledged allegiance and that I had accidentally picked Sabellian given the quests with Sabellian as the questgiver that followed.




Unless there has been another retcon, Alexstraza didn't get her Aspect powers from a stone or Titan machinery. She got it from the Titans themselves. Reigniting an Oathstone isn't going to get your powers back. You'll have to board the Vindicaar and fly up into space and meet the Titans and ask them to empower you again. And you don't need Aspect power specifically to defeat Raszageth. We've killed more powerful beings with no or alternative empowerments. We could just call in the Vindicaar and disembowel Raszageth with its laser.

Also not keen on yet another expansion plot revolving around a formulaic mcguffin hunt. "You must find the five Pillars of Creation!" "You must stop the jailer from obtaining the five sigils!" "You must reignite the five Oathstones!", and in doing so you will unite the four houses of Kul'tiras/the four Covenants of the Shadowlands/the five Dragonflights! I feel I've played through this story three or four times now. Please be more original.

Complaints about the macrolevel plot structure aside, I am enjoying the moment to moment questing experience.

I have finished the Waking Shores. That was... what? 5 hours long? That was exhausting. Nowhere near as well paced as Shadowlands or WoD's levelling experiences where a zone was about 2-3 hours long and you could complete it within a single play session and feel satisfied.

It's weird that the beginning of the expansion's storyline had you going around Orgrimmar/Stormwind recruiting named NPCs for the expedition, and they board the boat/gunship with voicelines... and then they disappear 30 minutes into the Waking Shore questline. I was expecting them to be travelling with your for the entire story, like the NPCs in the WoD storyline.





Ohn'ahran Plains

The mute chieftain with an interpreter is a neat gimmick, though perhaps it could have been reinforced with the chief performing sign language rather than just standing idle while the other NPC was talking and gesticulating.




The scripted ride on the dog mount wasn't well synced. Both times I wound up clipping through the chief and the wagon.

Not sure if this was a bug or developer laziness, but the NPCs in Marukaai were giving me dialog that acted as if I had already completed the questline, spoiling the Nokhud's betrayal.




You do not look sixteen years old.

I wound up getting two quests to do the Nokhud offensive dungeon and kill Balak before the main storyline took me to that point. How did this make it through the beta?




What? The Scarlet Crusade had dozens of ballistas and that didn't stop the dragon you ride in the Death Knight intro from wiping them out. The Nokhud only have three. This should be a piece of cake.

Finished the plains. Aesthetically boring zone. Boring culture. Boring story. By the time I reached the part with the necromancers and the green dragons, I was skipping through the dialogue boxes because I just wanted it to be over. Meh. Fortunately the Azure Span looks way more visually appealing, hopefully the factions and the story are good too. But first, I want to get my Tauren transmog stuff ASAP, and I am level 70 so I'll do it next.




I am disappointed that the Velocidrake is so tiny. It was the dragonriding breed I wanted the most (this is what I wanted, also white scales aren't available yet?), but my Tauren looks silly on it. Wish it had been scaled up. Looks like I'll be forced to use the Proto-Drake. Same issue I have in GW2 where my Charr looks stupid on every mount and skin except the Broad-Horned Bull skin for the Skyscale and the Dreadnaught skin for the raptor, making those the only mounts I can use.

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Miscellaneous thoughts

How hasn't the Dragon Isles been discovered and colonized by the trolls or the elves or the human kingdoms yet? Pandaria was surrounded in dense mists that made it impossible to find, and we know that ships that visit the other side of Azeroth don't come back (presumably destroyed or fell down a giant waterfall and couldn't sail back), but I have heard of no such barriers surrounding the Dragon Isles.

Why doesn't Khadgar bring Dalaran to the Dragon Isles? Not that I would want to spend a third expansion in Dalaran, but lorewise I don't see any reason why he couldn't. Khadgar is fighting another world ending threat that isn't politically controversial to oppose. With a flying base, the forces of Azeroth would be better able to keep their promise to Alexstraza to not exploit or conquer the Dragon Isles. No need to clear land and build bases on the ground when they have a flying city right there, and then when the crisis is over it just goes away. No cleanup required.

Why aren't the other dragonflights invited to the Dragon celebration and rediscovery of their ancient heritage going on the Dragon Isles? The Netherwings, the Storm dragons in the Broken Isles, and perhaps some others I'm forgetting. Going by the new lore where dragons can gain Aspect powers from Titan oathstones, there is really no reason to exclude Dragonflights who weren't the original five. More Titan oathstones could be created and grant aspect powers to the Netherwings and Storm dragons who pledge to protect Azeroth.



Also, a question: is there an emote that allows my character to lounge or sit against my dragon, like I can in GW2? Has any such emote been datamined? Like this:

[Alanar]

Also, a question: is there an emote that allows my character to lounge or sit against my dragon, like I can in GW2? Has any such emote been datamined? Like this:

I wish we could or have an emote where we hold our spear more like a guard or shove your sword in the ground and sit or kneel nezt to it. I would love these small things.
Leaning on your mount or leaning against a wall like npc in boralus would all add up to the immersion.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

True, but there could be hints hidden even there. Like the Worgen and Goblin tease back in the day.

Ye i didn't want full monthly schedule of datamining, but at least some new item names or some tease, something to be maybe excited about for the future transmoging.

So far i didn't buy much from TP, because there wasn't many items with the theme i personally like - savage, barbarian looking axes and swords or new armor pieces, big skull belts, leather fur gloves/boots, pants etc, so i was hoping for something new to be datamined that would fit my taste and be hyped about.

Something i read on reddit - New TP rotation happens on april 1st, so probably the giant 2h spoon will be a monthly reward.
Also wonder if we will get these scarlet crusade themed datamined items and something orc theme related, since both human and orcs got their heritage armor sets.

[Lahis]

Miscellaneous thoughts

How hasn't the Dragon Isles been discovered and colonized by the trolls or the elves or the human kingdoms yet? Pandaria was surrounded in dense mists that made it impossible to find, and we know that ships that visit the other side of Azeroth don't come back (presumably destroyed or fell down a giant waterfall and couldn't sail back), but I have heard of no such barriers surrounding the Dragon Isles.

Apparently you haven't seen the cinematic:

[micwini]

It is the same unchanged zone that just spawns invasion assets.

Did they revamp broken Isles zones when Legion Invasions strike zone?

Are BFA zones under faction assaults revamped?

He was wrong and now tries to change the meaning of the word revamp. Quite weird.

[Alanar]

We literally went to Zereth Mortis. You're huffing Copium to argue this. Accept the creator stuff and move on.

Way to use that word lol.

Maybe you missed it, but the forums literally flooded with how lame the concept was, it was cherry on top of an already bad expansion. I dont expect much, I could see them dial back a bit.

[crusadernero]

Maybe this topic was talked about, but why isn't there more new datamining for Trading post items in patch like 10.1?
I went up to check some models that were already available to see on wowhead dressing room, but now they're invisible, is it because Blizzard friendly asked sites like Wowhead, mmochampion to not cover them that much or they blocked access to visible models?

Saving it for the lolz come April 1. My bets is on some ludicrous Trade Post stuff to buy OR that Classic+ is coming this year. Announcing Classic+ as a april 1 joke would be insanity and pure chaos.

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I wish we could or have an emote where we hold our spear more like a guard or shove your sword in the ground and sit or kneel nezt to it. I would love these small things.
Leaning on your mount or leaning against a wall like npc in boralus would all add up to the immersion.

That would be awesome! Like the ideas.

[Nathanyel]

I don't understand why mortal races like humans and dwarves and trolls are working for the Primalists. [...]
The Primalists (as in the mortals) would've made more sense if they weren't a new faction out of nowhere, but were just Twilight's Hammer remnants.

Most of them actually are. There's a quest in Valdrakken implying a connection, and in an interview it was straight up confirmed that many Primalists are former Twilight's Hammer

You do not look sixteen years old.

I can see why they wouldn't want to implement teenage versions of the generic models.

Tbh the model of Thrall's son achieves a lot just by using an "emo" haircut.

[Wangming]

-snip-

Considering your issues with the starting experience, may I interest you in the sort of meltdown I had about Dracthyr lore? I quote:

Let's see the Dracthyr story so far:
- Nelharion a giant fuckoff city-sized dragon figured that he needs an army of skinny human sized boys to fight in his army.
- The other aspects were totally cool with infusing soldiers only loyal to Neltharion himself, with their powers, for some reason.
- Despite their single-minded loyalty the dracthyr were controlled via a titan artifact with worse signal range than an average wi-fi hotspot
- In a battle where the titan wifi was present it got damaged so the dracthyr became self-aware and free to blindly follow Neltharion and question everyone else.
- Since the titan artifact is unreplaceable somehow instead of killing the army they decided to lock them up in stasis with an army of blue dragons staying there as guards.
- A failure in the stasis system can totally kill dracthyr but there was apparently no plan to implement this to get rid of the dracthyr problem for good.
- When the Primalists attacked the Forbidden reach, the blue dragons didn't pull a Maiev and instead decided to kill all the dracthyr who conveniently woke up. Also they totally didn't get the memo that Malygos has been dead since Wrath so no point in following his orders.
- The dracthyr kicked blue dragon butt because apparently they weren't created with a failsafe against hurting titan creations. Go figure.
- When two black dragons arrived they immediately asked what's up with Neltharion because they are still totally willing to follow him without titan mind control. But only him, not the two new guys.
- After learning about the past 10 thousand years they just shrugged and decided that they need to find a new path. No existencial dread, no trauma, or drama. Just: guess we are free.

They didn't really think this throiugh, did they?

[huth]

They didn't really think this throiugh, did they?

Well, the very first part actually does make sense. Neltharion is a city sized dragon. I.e. a fricking huge target that has trouble getting through small passages. In a war, that's a major disadvantage.

Now, the way he tried to do it shows signs of Mad Scientist syndrome. But that's not necessarily all that off. And i'm not sure the other flights actually willingly agreed to things. The story of the Forbidden Isle suggests that outside of Neltharion, Malygos and the dragons they stationed there, most dragons didn't actually know much about the place. Malygos isn't the best known for fully thinking his actions through, either.
And of course they didn't try to intentionally induce a failure in the stasis system; they wouldn't have created it in the first place if killing the Dracthyr was the goal.
It's just that all of the leading officers went and got themselves killed before they could fix the problem or come up with some other reason to release them again.

Meanwhile, 10.1 is dealing quite a bit with drama and trauma related to the Dracthyr. At the same time, being stoic and soldiering on even in stressfull times would be a desirable design feature for what Neltharion wanted.

Blizzard did think it through. Neltharion and Malygos may not have, though.

[Cheezits]

Neltharion was not a giant city-sized dragon back in the day. He wouldn't have been any bigger than current Alex.

[GabrielKnight]

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

Her Heroes of the Storm model looks like a caring and hot momma, I like it much more than the current Instagram model they did. Of course this goes hand by hand with the change of direction in the art department, but that's a discussion from another thread.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Considering your issues with the starting experience, may I interest you in the sort of meltdown I had about Dracthyr lore? I quote:



They didn't really think this throiugh, did they?

Deathwing wasn’t a city sized dragon before the dragon soul and being corrupted in body by the void.

The other aspects didn’t know he was making the Drac’s With only Malygos finding out when deathwing asked for help locking them up.

They are put into stasis because deathwing thought they might be useful in the future and only had like 1 blue and a dime a dozen Dracknoids watching them.

Malygos And death wing didn’t want them dead so had no reason to put in a fail safe to kill them all.

The dragon isle were cut off from the dragons for 10 thousand years there’s no way for the blues to know Malygos died.

The primalist are seemingly Titan created given that tier was experimenting on proto drakes with the elements so making them not able to attack titan creations would kinda defeat the purpose of them and given that even the aspects and Titan watchers don’t have such fail safes why would he be able to do what the titans them selfs couldn’t?

Death wings experiments were seemingly a secret even from his own flight so there’s no reason to think he’d made a chain of command that they would follow the next black that showered yo and not just him self.

There is trauma and drama that’s why we had the sundered flame break off, though the show casing of it is poorly done.

But ya most of this stuff is thought through and explained to us in game.

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Her Heroes of the Storm model looks like a caring and hot momma, I like it much more than the current Instagram model they did. Of course this goes hand by hand with the change of direction in the art department, but that's a discussion from another thread.

https://static.heroesofthestorm.com/...binder-800.jpg

Always so odd to see people championing hots Alex post dragonflight when she got so much hate when hots was relevant for them making her “fat” because she was bigger then her wow model.

[Pheraz]

The dracthyr story is really bad. It's actually worse than the sylvanas story in bfa. There is zero urgency in the whole arc, it's just super generic. Also they had all this chromatic dragons in vanilla. Then the twilight dragons in cata and now the good and rightful dracthyr. Idk, xpac is okaish and dragon riding is epic but this new class/race is super weird

[micwini]

Her Heroes of the Storm model looks like a caring and hot momma, I like it much more than the current Instagram model they did. Of course this goes hand by hand with the change of direction in the art department, but that's a discussion from another thread.

Why did they make her so fat in hots lol

[Lahis]

Why did they make her so fat in hots lol

What........?

[Cheezits]

The dracthyr story is really bad. It's actually worse than the sylvanas story in bfa. There is zero urgency in the whole arc, it's just super generic. Also they had all this chromatic dragons in vanilla. Then the twilight dragons in cata and now the good and rightful dracthyr. Idk, xpac is okaish and dragon riding is epic but this new class/race is super weird

I like the "twist" that Neltharion was always sort of a douchebag, it makes his "lol corruption" backstory much more interesting if he was very close to Deathwing levels of egoistic and experimental before he turned to void. He seems like the kind of character that would fall for the Void visions and whispers (or see the timelines where he succeeds and do everything to be like that).

I've seen people on twitter crying about Neltharion being shitty is lame writing, but how can it be more lame than "bad guy was actually good before he huffed magic juice" number 99999?