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

[Nathanyel]

Ideally Ogres and Centaurs for the Horde, Arrakoa and Furbolgs for the Alliance, Tuskarr and Tortollan as neutral races! ♥

I'd say other than Ogres/Mok'nathal and Furbolg, every new race should be neutral.

And even those two can be explained as neutral: there's plenty neutral or currently hostile Ogre clans on both worlds that have no history with the New Horde, same with Furbolgs outside of Kalimdor, who maybe know about the Kaldorei before we meet them, but haven't had relations with them in literal millennia.

Especially with the https://ptr.wowdb.com/items/205878-o...ect-earthstone which gives mythic effects to all sets.

Well, while I can't find the achievement for this new item, I can rest a bit more easy knowing that this likely will remain obtainable in future patches, just like it seems to be for Gleaming Incarnate Thunderstone from Deep Cuts From the Vault (which is still not a Feat of Strength, even on the 10.1 PTR )

[CopyX1982]

random shower thought: Next new class they add, dear lord please have it start at level 1/7, for the love of all that is holy...

I wanna level through northrend again, on a fresh toon!

[Luck4]

The real questions is, will we face Murozond/Galakrond in the final raid or are they saving that for a future timewalking expansion?

A Timewalking expansion revisiting iconic events from the past with an Infinite Dragonflight twist would be great, I enjoyed every single Cavern of Time Dungeon/Raid despite the boredom of escorting Thrall in such a slow horse or killing endless waves of Infinite forces in Black Morass.

I'm still disappointed that Well of Eternity was cut short and we didn't get a fully fledge raid of such an iconic moment.

I'm still 100% on board for a Revamp, but a Timewalking Expansion focused on events before the MMO era could be great too.

[Sondrelk]

A Timewalking expansion revisiting iconic events from the past with an Infinite Dragonflight twist would be great, I enjoyed every single Cavern of Time Dungeon/Raid despite the boredom of escorting Thrall in such a slow horse or killing endless waves of Infinite forces in Black Morass.

I'm still disappointed that Well of Eternity was cut short and we didn't get a fully fledge raid of such an iconic moment.

I'm still 100% on board for a Revamp, but a Timewalking Expansion focused on events before the MMO era could be great too.

The Well of Eternity dungeon always stuck out to me. Such a fantastic array of bosses in those dungeons, and then such a shitty raid to go with it.
In the dungeons we fight Heroes of Azeroth, Murozond, Queen Azshara, Mannoroth, and Archbishop Benedictus in a really cool fight. And in the raid we have a bunch of reused assets and boring bosses.

[Cheezits]

When do they reveal next month's Trading Post rewards?

[Nymrohd]

The Well of Eternity dungeon always stuck out to me. Such a fantastic array of bosses in those dungeons, and then such a shitty raid to go with it.
In the dungeons we fight Heroes of Azeroth, Murozond, Queen Azshara, Mannoroth, and Archbishop Benedictus in a really cool fight. And in the raid we have a bunch of reused assets and boring bosses.

Imagine this Raid instead of Dragon Soul

1-2 Two faction leaders, rotating every week
3 Murozond
4 Peroth'arn
5 Azshara
6 Mannoroth
7 Morchok instead of Arcurion
8 Asira
9 Benedictus
10 Zon'ozz
11 Yor'sahj
12 Chromatus instead of Hagara (he was trapped by the blue flight, maybe have us fight a very damaged version of him that would work like Megaera)
13 Ulthraxion
14 Blackhorn
15 Deathwing

Heck 5 wings of 3 bosses each ending with Murozond, Mannoroth, Benedictus, Chromatus and Deathwing.

removed Hagara cause . . .
Deathwing ofc needed to be redesigned.

[Varodoc]

I used to think it was obvious Murozond would be the end boss of a Dragon expansion, but now that is very unlikely, because Blizzard has been hyping up each Primal Incarnate a lot, and so there probably won't be enough time and space to do Murozond justice in this expansion.

Murozond and his flight have always served the Void and the Old Gods; this was obvious in Cataclysm, when Murozond and his flight intervened to prevent the Dragon Soul (the only weapon capable of destroying Deathwing, N'Zoth's champion) from being taken from the Past, and then attempted to kill Thrall before he could complete his destiny at Wyrmrest Temple.

Obviously N'Zoth and the Old Gods will return, Murozond will be saved for that expansion. When the Old God resurfaces from the abyss once more, Murozond and his followers will be made to answer the call to war. Just as they did in Cataclysm.

And this expansion already set up that future perfectly; with the Chromie questline, which features 1) N'Zoth cameo, with a not even subtle hint that he foresaw his defeat and made contingencies 2) an actual Infinite dragon who joined the spotlight and 3) Nozdormu's acknowledgement that his fate is sealed and he is doomed to succumb to the Old Ones' whispers.

[Cheezits]

We are not dealing with Light and Void this soon.

Maybe the Order or Life realms, but that's it.

Sarkareth tries to contact the Void Lords in 10.1/the story is all about Deathwing's void corruption, and both Tyr and POSSIBLY Iridikron are connected to the Light. While it's not going to be the focus of any zone or patch lore, we are already halfway there in Dragonflight.

[Sondrelk]

Imagine this Raid instead of Dragon Soul

1-2 Two faction leaders, rotating every week
3 Murozond
4 Peroth'arn
5 Azshara
6 Mannoroth
7 Morchok instead of Arcurion
8 Asira
9 Benedictus
10 Zon'ozz
11 Yor'sahj
12 Chromatus instead of Hagara (he was trapped by the blue flight, maybe have us fight a very damaged version of him that would work like Megaera)
13 Ulthraxion
14 Blackhorn
15 Deathwing

Heck 5 wings of 3 bosses each ending with Murozond, Mannoroth, Benedictus, Chromatus and Deathwing.

removed Hagara cause . . .
Deathwing ofc needed to be redesigned.

15 bosses is probably a bit too long. But really just remove the extra fat on that lineup and you have an amazing 10-12 boss raid. Maybe swap around a few bosses like Murozond and Benedictus to a later, more impactful position, and you have a really strong raid.

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When do they reveal next month's Trading Post rewards?

Next month.

[Nymrohd]

Sarkareth tries to contact the Void Lords in 10.1/the story is all about Deathwing's void corruption, and both Tyr and POSSIBLY Iridikron are connected to the Light. While it's not going to be the focus of any zone or patch lore, we are already halfway there in Dragonflight.

I mean we are halfway there in every expansion.

[Sondrelk]

I used to think it was obvious Murozond would be the end boss of a Dragon expansion, but now that is very unlikely, because Blizzard has been hyping up each Primal Incarnate a lot, and so there probably won't be enough time and space to do Murozond justice in this expansion.

Murozond and his flight have always served the Void and the Old Gods; this was obvious in Cataclysm, when Murozond and his flight intervened to prevent the Dragon Soul (the only weapon capable of destroying Deathwing, N'Zoth's champion) from the Past, and then attempted to kill Thrall before he could complete his destiny at Wyrmrest Temple.

Obviously N'Zoth and the Old Gods will return, Murozond will be saved for that expansion. When the Old God resurfaces from the abyss once more, Murozond and his followers will be made to answer the call to war. Just as they did in Cataclysm.

We still have potential plotlines in 10.1 that have not ben revealed yet, alongside 10.1.5 and potentially even a 10.1.7 before we even begin going into 10.2 and 10.3. We have plenty of time to build up Murozond if it's done right.
There still remains a second act twist to really move us towards the final raid. All manner of ways Murozond could be slotted into those.

[Varodoc]

We still have potential plotlines in 10.1 that have not ben revealed yet, alongside 10.1.5 and potentially even a 10.1.7 before we even begin going into 10.2 and 10.3. We have plenty of time to build up Murozond if it's done right.
There still remains a second act twist to really move us towards the final raid. All manner of ways Murozond could be slotted into those.

Not really. When you check Reddit and the Official forums, pretty much everyone only cares about the Primal Incarnates and knowing more about the Primalists.

Murozond is a servant of the Old Gods and thus he is best saved for the inevitable expansion where the Old Gods return.

We already know that Iridrikon is obviously a puppet of the Old Gods and made his bargain with them, this expansion can end on that cliff-hanger, with Iridrikon's defeat and the return of the Old Gods.

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Sarkareth tries to contact the Void Lords in 10.1/the story is all about Deathwing's void corruption, and both Tyr and POSSIBLY Iridikron are connected to the Light. While it's not going to be the focus of any zone or patch lore, we are already halfway there in Dragonflight.

Yes, this is what I'm saying. Dragonflight sets up the Void expansion and it has done so since the Chromie questline.

Why are people here ignoring that the questline reveals N'Zoth saw the future of the players? He literally saw everything that would transpire in BfA, ofc he's not dead and made backup plans.

Dragonflight already set up 11.0 and it will have major Void involvement. Since Murozond is a full-blown agent of the Void, saving him for the next expansion makes sense.

It's also obvious that Iridrikon, the main villain of DF, made a dark bargain with the Old God (as a parallel to Neltharion), so that is also set-up for the next expansion.

The remainder of Dragonflight can be centred around the Primal Incarnates, who seem to be quite popular amongst the community. Certainly far more than the bald jailer ever was. The Primal Incarnates should be in the spotlight and Murozond should be saved for the next expansion.

[huth]

Next month.

On April 1st, to be specific. This might get a bit odd.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have finished the levelling questlines. Thoughts:

Click on thumbnails for fullsized image





The Azure Span

I was really burned by the mediocre sidequests in the plains. I feel like I'll just skip most sidequests from here on out unless the blurb sounds interesting.

Kalec's young, mopey voice and demeanor is rather quite inappropriate for Warcraft.




The character designs and colors, the way the characters' gestures are animated and their dialogue, etc, makes me feel like I am watching an episode of RWBY. That's not good. I'm supposed to be playing Warcraft.

Not a fan of the Tuskarr voices in this expansion. When I think Tuskurr, I think hardened sailors, fisherman, and eskimos who live in harsh conditions. Not bubbly Californian college kids.

Did they really just reuse the voice actor of Alexstraza's majordomo's as the female Tuskurr chieftain?




... What Ancient? I am standing right here beside you and I can't see the thing you're supposedly gawking at.




Dude, your mirror image/shadow clone has 10x my HP, and I have killed numerous supervillains. Your shadow clone is fine.




At the Tuskurr village, the campaign required me to gather objects for the late chieftain's funeral. Except there was some sort of GW2-esque event going on where players where a couple dozen players were brewing a stew.

The first problem was that I wanted to join in, but the game gave me no directions how. No objective popped up on the right side of my screen. Didn't see any special icons on minimaps. Looked around for an NPC to talk to, thinking that maybe I had to opt into the event, but didn't find anything. Some hostile mobs appeared and I tagged them but apparently didn't get any credit. I presume this another one of those stupid decisions like preventing players from doing world quests unless they've gone through THE ENTIRE STORYLINE. If you're going to dangle an event in front of my face, let me actually participate in it! In GW2, when I see an event, I am not told "oh no you have to go beat the story first before you can do this event". I can just hop in and do it!




Second problem is that the soup event's items like fish and spices were mixed in with the questing items. It was difficult squinting at the soup area crowded by a dozen players and with dead corpses and other intractables for the event that were unrelated to my campaign, trying to find that item I needed to progress the story. Not just the soup area (see the screenshot with the soup pot. The quest object was buried under the players), but also the inside of one of the huts as well, with players running in there to grab fish and other stuff while I am trying to find a quest interactable in there. GW2 avoids this problem by keeping event spaces seperate from spaces that host story interactable. For example, GW2 has a similar cooking event, and there is a story location nearby where you have to go looking at quest objects, but it is a different building and there is no reason for players on either task to go into the other space. There is no mixing of objects from different objectives amongst each other.

(EDIT: in retrospect, it seems that the real issue was that the quest items didn't have the usual golden outline for some reason. If they had, they would've been differentiated from the other interactables).

The fixed camera cutscene battle at the end was kinda cool.




I am supposed to be playing Warcraft, not watching a sappy Disney movie! If I could have traveled 10 years back in time and posted this screenshot, people would have laughed. The thought of this happening in WoW would have been inconceiveable. Oh, and BTW, where is Jaina? Isn't she apart of your family, Kalecgos?




The Drake has a powerful downstroke/ascent animation. I wish my Proto-Drake's ascent felt that powerful. Sadly the actual Drake model itself doesn't look cool like NPC dragons, and again you have odd scaling where the Tauren looks a little dumb on it.





Thaldraszus

I am not amused by the large number of NPCs with wimpy voices and demeanor in this expansion. Sendrax, that seer in the plains, Kalecgos, the Tuskurr from Azure Span, that Dracthyr timewalker in Thaldraszus. In Warcraft, we're here to kickass or die trying, not to babysit people with insecurities. This is a franchise where characters speak authoritatively.


The Primalist Future event was not well designed.

The event has two steps. The first step requires players to simultaneously occupy four positions on the map (the areas around the portals). A position is considered "occupied" when players are in the area for a certain period of time (seems like 3 to 5 minutes). If there are no players in the area and mobs enter the space, then the occupy progress is lost and the occupation timer starts all over again. Once a position is occupied, players have to remain there to maintain the occupied status, until all four positions are occupied. So players wind up standing around for 10-15 minutes because people keep abandoning positions and leaving them unoccupied and having to be captured again. That's not fun.




Worse, is that when you open your map, there is no way to know at a glance which portals have been occupied, ie no icons that differ on status, nor does the objective list on the right side of the screen tell you which portals are occupied. You have to mouse over each portal and read whether they are open or closed. Another issue is that players can't easily identify and communicate which portals need more players. You can't say "need more people at north portal!" or "need more at bottom lane" or "need more at water portal" like you can in GW2. So portals become unoccupied and the process is dragged out.

Once all four portals are simultaneously occupied, the second step begins. You fight an ice elemental boss. The fight is boring. You just smack the boss and step out of puddles of bad. That's it. Ocassionally the boss becomes invulnerable and you have to kill adds but it's still boring. Even worse is how it is drawn out. It's six minutes long. Would have been more interesting if for the invulnerability phase, the boss flew high up and the adds that had to be killed spawned a thousand yards away, so you would mount up and fly to them and kill them, then fly back.




Also, performance was pretty bad towards the end with all of the puddles onscreen. Was getting <30 FPS.

I don't see myself willingly doing this event again. Certainly not for the fun of it like GW2 events.


The time travel quests were fun. Missed opportunity to show us the seven headed Y'shaarj since this was before the Titan's arrives and he got torn out of the planet.


Big missed opportunity.


Huh, they're telling me to do the Vault of the Incarnates right away? I was expecting that there would be a meaty amount of story content in between finishing the levelling questline and the first raid.

I will try finding a PUG for normal mode that allows newbs. I want to seemlessly go through the whole raid, not get teleported into chopped up versions of it through raid finder. I tanked Antorus normal PUGs and a few heroic bosses and the only information I needed to know was to keep the two dog bosses seperated, and Aggramar's tankbuster/cleave combo. Also PUGed Uldir normal blind and did pretty well, so I'm pretty optimistic about doing Vault of the Incarnates normal blind.





Misc.



I forgot to mention that I disliked that Blizzard pulled another WoD. They dangled a faction's mount in front of your face in quests and their flightpaths... only for it to be unavailable to obtain ingame through the reputation system, only available on the cash shop.


I did the Baine questline. It was alright. The best part was the 5 minutes of slaughtering centaurs with Baine. Started feeling like Warcraft for a moment there. If only more of the last four expansions were like that.




I wish that the Tauren's iconic weapon, the tree log, was actually swung around as such, rather than being wielded as if it was a relatively light two handed sword. Would it have been that hard for Blizzard to make a half dozen log swinging animations for just one race?





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I saw a Tauren running around carrying a staff against their shoulder. Is that how monks wield their staves now? Can a Tauren monk transmog their staff to look like the log, and then run around with the log resting on their shoulder? Or is it only the monk's artifact weapon that gets that animation?

[Revamp Man]

with how Voidy we are getting in 10.1 i think that if we do not see chromatus in some capacity this expansion it is a huge waste of potential

[GabrielKnight]

I did the Baine questline. It was alright. The best part was the 5 minutes of slaughtering centaurs with Baine. Started feeling like Warcraft for a moment there. If only more of the last four expansions were like that.

It seems like this is the general consensus with that quest, myself included. But somehow some people still insist that WoW hasn't gotten too family friendly. A quest like that one felt like a breath of fresh air, for once I didn't felt embarrased at playing the game.

Oh, and if you're cringing at the awful voice acting, wait until you hear the Night Elf in the Academy. Probably the worst voice ever.

[Jekyll]

A design which, curiously, is the only difference between them and a Tauren subspecies.

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If they did happen, it would have to be a flight form—I lean towards the idea they'd probably have to be humanoid, though. I can see a legless race working in connection with the Naga, but I think any kind of centaur-type race would be too awkward to handle and make work, and I don't think it would feel very good having to use a racial flight form or a gallop for a mount.

if we can turn into a water blob using Tortollan flight taxi and we have ohnara breath mount, Centaurs can be a blob of dirt or a bird or something IDC.

[Hitei]

I have finished the levelling questlines. Thoughts:

And you thought this blog post belonged in the patch/11.0 speculation thread because...?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

True, mechanically it's already solved, the problem is Blizz probably isn't sure folks would play such a race since mount collecting is such a big part of the game, and if folks DO play them but then become less obsessed with mount collecting they might be less drawn to staying subbed. High risk low reward from Blizz's pov.

In a way, I do think the implementation of Dracthyr as a race that can't wear player armor in one of its forms has given blizzard a good idea of how people would react to such a thing. With how Blzz has moved to be more alt friendly in terms of progression, it wouldn't be such a hit for player collection engagement.

[ExiHext]

And you thought this blog post belonged in the patch/11.0 speculation thread because...?

...because FFXIV better than WoW, I guess. I mean, a lalafel (falafel??) complaining about sketchy voices.