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

[Baraden]

Not to disagree with your overall point, but she was explicitly empowered by the Lich King's daddy (Zovaal) in Shadowlands, including the cinematic. When she murdered Saurfang and fucked off, characters comment that she's using powers she never had before, that none of them had even seen before.

This is how WoW has us deal with gigathreats like Titans or Eternal Ones while still having Fucko the Pirate be a dungeon boss in the next expansion still be a threat. When fighting these big fuckoff guys we're empowered by some giga person or artifact or w/e

If anything that helps my point; Sylvanas is suddently able to overcome a more powerful version of the entity that nearly killed her, because she had magical powers we had never seen before, given from a person we didn't know about, for a purpose we also didn't know about - so the power levels of characters are completely beholden to the plot rather than what the lore actually says is feasible

Obviously they had to make Anduin more powerful than the weedy kid who couldn't hold a sword properly he used to be, but if he suddenly became a fighter on the level of his father - people would rightly be pissed, so when Sylvanas was able to beat Saurfang and Bolvar with virtually no effort - that does feel like a spit in the face

[NoTimeToDie5426]

Broxigar cut Sargeras with an axe made of wood.

Do not disrespect the Axe of Cenarius like that smh...

[Kiria]

Great answer! But seriously, what does that mean? That's a "subjective" take. Be more specific, please.

Less of the adventurer stuff, we've not been adventurer's for years, We are are Heroes/Champions/Commanders we no longer fill the role of the lowly adventurer we need BIG bold adventure's with a great big story.

[Baraden]

Good point. Also, who do you think would be more fun to quest with: Green Jesus, or the rainbowdreamteamofdragons? I'd take GJ any day of the week.

I have 8 Alliance toons and 5 Horde, so you could say I'm predominantly Alliance - I still enjoy seeing Thrall on screen all these years later

I roll my eyes every time chromie speaks

[Reive]

Great answer! But seriously, what does that mean? That's a "subjective" take. Be more specific, please.

another expansion where the main content is only raid/m+/arena. another expansion where variety of content is an afterthought. dragonflight was basically a raidlog expansion with nothing fun to do outside of the main trio of endgame activities

[Selorian]

Fringe elements versus mainstream opinions

You can't seriously believe people were equally annoyed at the writing of the game back in BC versus how much they are now

The One Legion in all universes thing was just a vehicle to justify old faces coming back; now than Legion is over you can bet they won't really mention that plot point again - that's why we conveniently are able to kill Archimonde and Kil'Jaden in the Nether this time

I'm not saying Metzen is perfect - but would anyone REALLY choose Danuser over him? I'd even take Green Jesus over the retcons of Shadowlands and the dullness of Dragonflight

TBC (and Wrath) shitting on the lore was not a fringe opinion back then, it's just that back then it wasn't cool to hate on WoW/Blizzard like it is today and social media was not a big thing.

People complaining about today's lore are people that grew up in that era so there's rose-tinted goggles going on, because back then people were too young to see all the flaws. Now there's 10, 15 years of baggage and people are upset their favorite game growing up changed. Those people couldn't exist back then because the game was simply not that old.

It's why I've said before that people yearning for Metzen to "save WoW" (from their pov) shouldn't get their hopes up. The cosmic stuff is his baby. Danuser didn't pull it out of his ass in BFA. It was always there, building up in the background since TBC at the latest.

[Woke it Up]

This nostalgia worked well for me. I started playing in BC, and it was really cool to see all those BS characters in different roles and configurations.

I was thinking more how it was marketed and conceptualized with the OG orcs, and azeroth choppers and grrr man stuff. I've played alliance since the end of Vanilla and none of the main cast I knew of or cared much for. So cool if you did

Seeing AU stuff once we got the expac was fun, but wasn't what I was getting at.

[Selorian]

another expansion where the main content is only raid/m+/arena. another expansion where variety of content is an afterthought. dragonflight was basically a raidlog expansion with nothing fun to do outside of the main trio of endgame activities

This is every expansion.

[Ferlion]

Broxigar cut Sargeras with an axe made of wood.

Broxigar cut Sargeras with one of the single strongest weapons we've ever seen in the lore, up to and including Frostmourn.

The Axe of Cenarius just flat out ignores Old God corruption, Nightmare mojo, etc. It's bonkers powerful.

And it gave Sargeras something that makes a papercut look serious.

[Houle]

Broxigar cut Sargeras with an axe made of wood.

Broxigar gave Sargeras a paper cut, and was immediatly burned to ash one second later.

Anduin almost killed Kyrestia and then walked away because the Jailer didnt actually care enough to finish her, he just wanted the sigil.

Not really comparable.

But as others have already pointed out, this discussion is pretty much pointless. We could argue back and forth on this for pages.
The real answer is, whoever Blizz currently wants to hype up for whatever reason will be strong, and when the next xpac comes, potentially nerfed again. With various reaons like "was powered up by MacGuffin XY" or just straight up retcons.

[ercarp]

To my MMO-C family: what would you consider a "dealbreaker(s)" to turn you completely off from caring/playing 11.0?

As long as we don't get any more Zereth/First Ones nonsense, I think I'll be able to stomach almost anything.

[Ferlion]

I guess this does bring up an interesting point, though. To my MMO-C family: what would you consider a "dealbreaker(s)" to turn you completely off from caring/playing 11.0?

Can't really think of anything.

Maybe the Forsaken taking the forefront and the foremost heroic race of Azeroth

[PotHockets]

another expansion where the main content is only raid/m+/arena. another expansion where variety of content is an afterthought. dragonflight was basically a raidlog expansion with nothing fun to do outside of the main trio of endgame activities

This is such a weird take considering DF is the first time since like Pet Battles that we've gotten anything new to do that isn't just funneling towards instanced content.

[Reive]

This is every expansion.

no lol. even shadowland had better variety of content. dragonflight felt like the devs were scared of making people play the game. even the world quests are on a biweekly rotation this expansion

[matijwow]

It's possible it was a very early concept, but if so, damn... everything except the name of the expansion was changed lol.

Definitely a lot different, but I noticed these interesting parallels:

-4 major zones around a central transit hub
-The north one may have a military/death knight theme (compare to Maldraxxus)
-Xiros looks to be some kind of forest zone with a subzone called "Elunian Meadows" (compare to Ardenweald)
-There's a fifth, smaller zone hovering off the western coast (compare to the Maw)
-The sea encompassing the whole and flowing between zones is similar to the In-Between

A lot of the names on the map that overlap could have easily predictable based on threads we had, but none of the previous expansion continents were arranged in the way this map was, and it happened to have a similar layout to the actual Shadowlands map.

[Baraden]

WoD was bad because it was a complete self insert nolstsgia trip that was completely devoid of what people actually liked about wow. People complain about the writing now, but it at least tries to be both reverent but also evolutionary of what WoW is, rather than "rule of cooling" a million other players and other devs before realizing it's all orcs.

See also the warcraft movie.

Name one thing about currently storytelling in WoW that is reverent or evolutionary

Go watch the Sepulcher of the First ones cinematic with what they did to Arthas and tell me a single iota of reverance is present there, or just the flat out retcon of most established lore

To dragonflight's credit, it's not really breaking previous lore or trashing classic characters *cough* malfurion *cough* but fuck, is it dull - we're very likely getting the last patch next month, does anyone feel anywhere near how they felt when Argus was released? I sure don't

[Woke it Up]

TBC (and Wrath) shitting on the lore was not a fringe opinion back then, it's just that back then it wasn't cool to hate on WoW/Blizzard like it is today and social media was not a big thing.

People complaining about today's lore are people that grew up in that era so there's rose-tinted goggles going on, because back then people were too young to see all the flaws. Now there's 10, 15 years of baggage and people are upset their favorite game growing up changed. Those people couldn't exist back then because the game was simply not that old.

It's why I've said before that people yearning for Metzen to "save WoW" (from their pov) shouldn't get their hopes up. The cosmic stuff is his baby. Danuser didn't pull it out of his ass in BFA. It was always there, building up in the background since TBC at the latest.

They said repeatedly at the time, gameplay trumps lore every time. Story was backseat and every expansion had to be crazy when compared to the last. Space goats! Lich king! We destroyed the world! Entire new culture (takes a breath)! Time travel help orc daddy! Panic button fan service! OK let's chill! People didn't like chill let's give them something different! Ooooo panic fan dragons!

I think he is the one that said they never expected wow to succeed, or last this long, and thats amazing.

Personally there's only so much they can do by trying to blow everything out the water each expac. BFA and WoD both suffered by trying to exceed expectations with new features that are the rest of the dev time

[Ferlion]

no lol. even shadowland had better variety of content. dragonflight felt like the devs were scared of making people play the game. even the world quests are on a biweekly rotation this expansion

I don't think this is true.

Not exactly. But I also think that Dragonflight got older than normal because it's zones draw heavily from Wrath of the Lich King in a lot of places.

[ercarp]

Definitely a lot different, but I noticed these interesting parallels:

-4 major zones around a central transit hub
-The north one may have a military/death knight theme (compare to Maldraxxus)
-Xiros looks to be some kind of forest zone with a subzone called "Elunian Meadows" (compare to Ardenweald)
-There's a fifth, smaller zone hovering off the western coast (compare to the Maw)
-The sea encompassing the whole and flowing between zones is similar to the In-Between

A lot of the names on the map that overlap could have easily predictable based on threads we had, but none of the previous expansion continents were arranged in the way this map was, and it happened to have a similar layout to the actual Shadowlands map.

There's also a mention of "Blood..." something in Morbara, which could point to it being a precursor for Revendreth (cus of all the vampire stuff). A bit of a stretch, but still.

If it's 100% a hoax, it's a bit odd that the creator never came forward to claim their 15 minutes of fame.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I guess this does bring up an interesting point, though. To my MMO-C family: what would you consider a "dealbreaker(s)" to turn you completely off from caring/playing 11.0?

Any cosmic realm or going off planet. I’m interested in Azeroth and Azeroth alone.