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

[ercarp]

We already got High Elves with Dragonflight.

I'm not looking to get into a pointless argument about high elves, I was just using it as one more example of a highly requested playable race and an obvious W that Blizzard could take instead of coming up with another random creature that hasn't been established in the lore and no one has asked for (i.e. Dracthyr).

[pacotaco]

Hard to really call them "dying" when they made Death, ya know?

Maybe they just fizzled out idk? But I don't think it's akin to the Titans where they themselves "died" ya know?

By dying I meant a dying race, going extinct.

[huth]

The Void Lords are in the same tier of power as the Titans and Eternal Ones tho.

You're confusing leadership and political power with personal combat capability there. Eternal Ones aren't even remotely close to Titan tier, at least as far as fully powered Titans go. We literally beat Zovaal to death by ourselves. We needed the Pantheon's help and the artifacts to even have a chance against Argus, who wasn't even properly awakened and weakened from being drained for millenia.

[pacotaco]

so according to the leaker:

- shaman (tank) and demon hunter (dps, no support) will receive a new specialization
- eastern kingdoms revamp
- no housing (not surprising, unfortunately)
- new glyph system
- new races (plural, so minimum 2)
- new personalizations for current races
- elements are a theme of the expansion
- Khaz Algar is deep underground

would you be satisfied if it were real?
for me, no housing = huge disappointment

No new class nor special system? I'd be a bit disappointed, unless the new glyph systems is something akin the class skins.

[PotHockets]

I'll be honest, new Demon Hunter spec sounds kind of random especially if it's just another DPS spec. But I can kind of see them doing it considering they went and added a third spec to Evokers within the same expansion the class was released while DHs have been rolling with two specs for like 6 years now.

As for housing, I think Blizzard decided a long time ago that it's never going to happen in WoW so I'm not too surprised (or disappointed) about that. I don't think we'll ever get housing in WoW, it just doesn't fit the kind of game WoW is.

The expansion sounds a bit meh just based on this list and I'm worried the new races (something I would normally be somewhat excited about) would be something completely new (Algarians and... Avaloreans?) like Dracthyr instead of something popular that players actually want like Vrykul, Tuskarr, Ogres, High Elves, etc. I have no interest in another random race that hasn't been established in the lore.

I don't think it's random to add a 3rd DH spec and have it be DPS. Especially if it's a ranged spec. I think the DH community has been begging for that for a while now.

And yeah I agree on housing. I think anyone expecting housing in WoW at any point ever is possibly deluding themselves. I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility but I just don't see them putting that effort in on something that could easily have scope creep and screw them over like the Garrisons did in WoD. I think that was their test to see if they could get it done and they couldn't so I really doubt it's gonna happen.

[PotHockets]

everyone is talking about magical AI, but I still don’t know anything about it. So I have hands like two sticks and I can draw fantastic art? Is this some kind of website or program? In my understanding, AI is the Terminator from the movies

You feed specific prompts into an AI program like DallE or Midjourney. Something like "World of Warcraft expansion void karesh purple" it's already been fed thousands of pieces of art that was stolen from actual artists, then it sources it within it's code to basically throw shit at a wall based on what it's already learned about how something with that prompt should look and gives you as many AI generated pieces of "art" as you want. Then you can just pick and choose the ones that look the closest to the thing you wanted it to get and boom a piece of AI "art"

[Reive]

The Void hasn't been the final "enemy" for a long time now, quit spreading misinformation.

no? iridikron, azshara, xal'atath etc are all related to the void. as things stand right now, the void IS the final villain of wow.

[Cheezits]

so according to the leaker:

- shaman (tank) and demon hunter (dps, no support) will receive a new specialization
- eastern kingdoms revamp
- no housing (not surprising, unfortunately)
- new glyph system
- new races (plural, so minimum 2)
- new personalizations for current races
- elements are a theme of the expansion
- Khaz Algar is deep underground

would you be satisfied if it were real?
for me, no housing = huge disappointment

The leaker never confirmed that the Lands of Conflict are the EK. If anything Kalimdor would fit more, especially with elements and a new shaman spec.

I would prefer a revamp to housing.

[Sondrelk]

I'm not good at identifying AI artwork. Are there any obvious signs that the images are AI-generated?

For landscapes there are probably less. There will still likely be some artifacts of the AI process, but the best way to tell is that AI art tends to be busy, but bland.
It has lots of stuff going on, but no real sense of focus. WoW would not release a concept image of a valley unless there is something special about it for instance. Whether that means there is something like a house, or a particularly nice looking waterfall isnt as important as it being a nice picture.

Remember. AI generation has no sense of correct. It just knows what something is supposed to look like. And in the case of images that tends to come out as weird poses, busy composition, or weird use of colour.

[pacotaco]

no? iridikron, azshara, xal'atath etc are all related to the void. as things stand right now, the void IS the final villain of wow.

Not anymore, SL pointed at us having to rally all Forces to fight together against the coming threat.

[Darkarath]

no? iridikron, azshara, xal'atath etc are all related to the void. as things stand right now, the void IS the final villain of wow.

There is no such thing as a final villain in WoW.

As long as the game is alive, they would keep creating more powerful villains. Which is a mistake honestly. We have defeated enemies that we should not have been able to defeat.

It is a pitty that they went cosmic just to have more powerful enemies instead of creating interesting ones in Azeroth.

[Houle]

So...did you forget the things we were amplified by the time we fought the Jailer? Or? Cause those amps are far greater than any Legion amp.

Uhhh, no it wasnt? The Legion player character was absurdly amped up.
The most significant power-up the player character got for the Jailer was the ability to resist Domination.
And added to that, the Jailer was not a "normal" Eternal one, much like Sargeras isnt a "normal" titan. A "normal" Eternal One got clapped by us in the first raid (Denathrius) or almost killed by Anduin (Kyrestia).

[Sondrelk]

I don't think it's random to add a 3rd DH spec and have it be DPS. Especially if it's a ranged spec. I think the DH community has been begging for that for a while now.

And yeah I agree on housing. I think anyone expecting housing in WoW at any point ever is possibly deluding themselves. I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of possibility but I just don't see them putting that effort in on something that could easily have scope creep and screw them over like the Garrisons did in WoD. I think that was their test to see if they could get it done and they couldn't so I really doubt it's gonna happen.

The devs did mention they wanted to find a place where housing made sense, which is almost a confirmation.

Broadly though I agree with you. Housing would require a large amount of upfront work to make it even close to good enough to entice players. After which you need to focus on it in the background for a while to really have it come into its own.

I think it could work, though it would require a firm grasp of what an ideal version of it would look like. And even then it would likely be like Pet Battles in that it would take a while to truly come into its own.

[Well Done Steak]

Uhhh, no it wasnt? The Legion player character was absurdly amped up.
The most significant power-up the player character got for the Jailer was the ability to resist Domination.
And added to that, the Jailer was not a "normal" Eternal one, much like Sargeras isnt a "normal" titan. A "normal" Eternal One got clapped by the player character in the first raid (Denathrius) or almost killed by Anduin (Kyrestia).

Uhhh, no it wasnt? The Legion player character was absurdly amped up.
The most significant power-up the player character got for the Jailer was the ability to resist Domination.
And added to that, the Jailer was not a "normal" Eternal one, much like Sargeras isnt a "normal" titan. A "normal" Eternal One got clapped by us in the first raid (Denathrius) or almost killed by Anduin (Kyrestia).

We were soulbound to the covenants, I think that's a pretty significant amp.

We fought the jailor when he was amped by 4 extra sigils and the sepulcher. We don't know if he was the same strength prior to getting imprisoned.

[Selorian]

Uhhh, no it wasnt? The Legion player character was absurdly amped up.
The most significant power-up the player character got for the Jailer was the ability to resist Domination.
And added to that, the Jailer was not a "normal" Eternal one, much like Sargeras isnt a "normal" titan. A "normal" Eternal One got clapped by us in the first raid (Denathrius) or almost killed by Anduin (Kyrestia).

The players were empowered by the rest of the Eternal Ones, as well as equipped with armor made by the guy who made Frostmourne.

In Legion, the player had artifacts which were probably about the power level of SL's legendaries.

[PotHockets]

The devs did mention they wanted to find a place where housing made sense, which is almost a confirmation.

Broadly though I agree with you. Housing would require a large amount of upfront work to make it even close to good enough to entice players. After which you need to focus on it in the background for a while to really have it come into its own.

I think it could work, though it would require a firm grasp of what an ideal version of it would look like. And even then it would likely be like Pet Battles in that it would take a while to truly come into its own.

That's a good way to phrase it. I think it's something that CAN work but the question is just if it's worth the time/effort and like you said if they can even get it right. I do think it's much more likely post DF now that they're moving away from temporary systems and focusing on evergreen systems.

Even then everyone has different expectations for what housing would be and that's not something Blizz can easily parse to find a middle ground on. Some people legitimately, somehow, think that WoW is capable of having a housing system akin to the Sims or XIV/ESO and that's just not something you can just bolt onto a 20 year old game as opposed to including it in the first place. I feel like if we did get housing it would have to be a halfway point between Garrisons and what Rift had at most and I think on some level people would be mad about it instead of being happy that they made it work as best as they could and from a developer point of view that has to just look like a waste of resources to even bother with.

[Nightshade711]

You're confusing leadership and political power with personal combat capability there. Eternal Ones aren't even remotely close to Titan tier, at least as far as fully powered Titans go. We literally beat Zovaal to death by ourselves. We needed the Pantheon's help and the artifacts to even have a chance against Argus, who wasn't even properly awakened and weakened from being drained for millenia.

I mean we needed Azeroth’s help (the most powerful Titan in canon btw) to defeat the Zovaal.

[huth]

We were soulbound to the covenants, I think that's a pretty significant amp.

We fought the jailor when he was amped by 4 extra sigils and the sepulcher. We don't know if he was the same strength prior to getting imprisoned.

And in Legion, we had the Artifacts, the Netherlight Crucible and the Pantheon helping us against a barely even born and drained for millenia Argus.

The Soulbinds aren't even close.

[Nightshade711]

no? iridikron, azshara, xal'atath etc are all related to the void. as things stand right now, the void IS the final villain of wow.

The void isn’t THE “final villain” anymore.

N’zoth mentioned several times alluding to an “enemy of all” and some greater threat.
And then you had Zovaal be like “a cosmos divided can’t survive what is to come” which ties into one of the books mentioning a 7th force.

[huth]

I mean we needed Azeroth’s help (the most powerful Titan in canon btw) to defeat the Zovaal.

All she did was resist his attempt to drain her. And that was Zovaal at his strongest. We fought Argus at his weakest and he whooped our ass.