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

[Hitei]

Sure, but you also don't need the context to really get it. Going there and stopping the big abomination makes just as much sense even without the added context. I started playing in Cataclysm, and I never really felt I was missing anything. There were references, sure. But nothing beyond what I would have expected from a long standing franchise.

Besides, what a world revamp should do, and why we desperately need one is to give players that firm understanding of the race they play, and the world they inhabit.
A new Forsaken player would have no idea what their race is about unless they play the Cata opening, Stormheim, BfA, and Shadowlands. Which is an absurd amount to put on a new player just to understand a single race.
This is context that would've required even if you go to an entirely new area.

And how do you plan on informing a new player about WC3, Vanilla Forsaken, the fall of the Lich King into Cata Val'kyr into Stormheim, BfA and Shadowlands in a single non-contrived starting area experience that also moves the Forsaken story forward rather than just summarizing what's already happened?

A new area doesn't fixate on racial identity. That's why DF is the new player leveling main path. Because if you come out of Exile's and get sent on the Dragonscale Expedition, the historical context of the Forsaken isn't required.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

She didn't swap sides, it's Firakk doing a table-flip what she ants to avoid.

I mean she did swap sides and she also pretty much enabled fyrakk to do what he does now and who he turned into.

She knew about the shadowflame plan and what something like that does even more to someone that is already kinda crazy, she was there when fyrakk went undeground and she didn't even give a fuck whatever happens at that moment.

[Floot]

A new area doesn't fixate on racial identity. That's why DF is the new player leveling main path. Because if you come out of Exile's and get sent on the Dragonscale Expedition, the historical context of the Forsaken isn't required.

Currently newbies actually get sent to the Shadowlands, if I'm not mistaken...

[Sondrelk]

And how do you plan on informing a new player about WC3, Vanilla Forsaken, the fall of the Lich King into Cata Val'kyr into Stormheim, BfA and Shadowlands in a single non-contrived starting area experience that also moves the Forsaken story forward rather than just summarizing what's already happened?

A new area doesn't fixate on racial identity. That's why DF is the new player leveling main path. Because if you come out of Exile's and get sent on the Dragonscale Expedition, the historical context of the Forsaken isn't required.

You don't have to tell a new player everything, just the basic stuff that gives context for future appearances.

10.2 is a good example. An entirely new player will not have any idea why the tree is so important to the Nelves, nor why Forsaken are there. But just a bit of context would change that.

The best way to approach this would be to give new players enough context that they feel compelled to go to other old zones and see more of the story.
When a new player makes an Orc they have years of story that they have no context for. You could just tell them to go through it chronologically, or you could give them enough context that they realize that Siege of Orgrimmar would be an interesting next step on their own.

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Currently newbies actually get sent to the Shadowlands, if I'm not mistaken...

No, BfA is still the 10-50 experience. The devs realized that going straight to SL would just be confusing, so they wisely ignored it.

[Lady Atia]

WoD's surge is identical to every expansions. We have the box sales, we have the ambiguous engagement statements. That's why I said, to begin with, that every expansion does that bounce. They all jump up before an expansion and then fall down after, the only actual exception being BC, because there was still such an influx of new players that it didn't drop.

If you really think WoD did well because of WC2 nostalgia (lol) I don't know what to tell you. The entire expansion was explicitly made because Blizzard was aware that the average player had never touched WC2. Not because it was some "going back" thing.

It did actually well because of both WC2 nostalgia, but more than that, the hype from the Warcraft Movie (which, I think came out after WoD release and while many people disliked what we got in the end, the initial hype for it was huge). The entire thing was literally a marketing tie-in for that movie and the Orcs in it lol. Also, after MoP it felt like "return to classic warcraft" anyways for the kind of people who hated on the whole "panda" thing.

[Hitei]

Currently newbies actually get sent to the Shadowlands, if I'm not mistaken...

They get sent to BfA, but in 11.0 it is being switched to DF.

[Raetary]

Currently newbies actually get sent to the Shadowlands, if I'm not mistaken...

They don't, the current new player experience is BfA.

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Do we know Iridikron wants to end all life existence though? I don't even Fyrakk wants that, I think he just wants to commit genocidal levels of tree arson like the stinky undead elf before him.

Fyrakk doesn't want to destroy the tree, he wants to corrupt it.

[Kiria]

She didn't swap sides, it's Firakk doing a table-flip what she ants to avoid.
My prediction is that she will go to a pact with Alex: all dragonkin are under her protection, but the ones that want to transform into titan-empowered are free to go.
She will enforce the freedom of choice that Alex promised her in the past. And the aspects will have to accept because they can't reproduce anymore.

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Fyrakk is not trying to burn the tree or the world. He's trying to transform Azeroth into a sort of fire elemental plane.

But we were told earlier in the thread the DF was not elemental themed?

[micwini]

They don't, the current new player experience is BfA.

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Fyrakk doesn't want to destroy the tree, he wants to corrupt it.

He wants to take what is inside, as mentioned in the 10.1.7 video

[Lady Atia]

The thing is, why not name it a Witch Doctor? Plus they launch without a Heavy Armored shield warrior and they don't add one the first chance they get? Are they allergic to easy wins?

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Except for MoP.

Yeah, imagine WoD (or Shadowlands) initial huge amount of players with Dragonflights retention rate. It's btw quite funny that some of the most hyped up releases actually ended up being shit because both had the problem of huge content draughts. Similiary, BfA had huge potential but they literally took the worst part of artifacts and ditched the best thing about it (the unique, lore rich appearances), on top of raping the story of Sylvanas just to stroke Afrasiabis' dick. Followed by Shadowlands which would have turned out to be one of the best expansions if they hadn't castrated Torghast and spaced out the patches more in line with Dragonflight. Also Covenants should have "got pulled the ripcord" from the get-go, the initial restricition especially in the cosmetics parts just made them shit from the start lol, and when they finally fixed it most people didn't care about Shadowlands anymore. Oh, and also the mission table which got hyped up by that poor dev who developed the new battle tech for it which ended up exactly as unfun as the old mission table since anyone would use an addon to solve it anyways thanks to it being simply uninitative and boring haha.

[Numerol]

sylvanas on anduin sounds better

Oh man, I'm on the lonely SxA ship since forever.

[Raetary]

He wants to take what is inside, as mentioned in the 10.1.7 video

Yes, and he does that by corrupting it.

Vyranoth straight up tells us his plans.

[KurtMash]

Assuming a full old world revamp, how would you see it?
Revamping old zones cata style, as a low-level leveling experience? It would probably be a big waste of resources, if all this new content was entirely skippable.
Revamping all old zones as max-level zones for the new expansion? It would be way too many zones for one expac.
Revamping old world by merging zones? Losing a variety of sceneries would suck, and if "subzones" remain visually separate, then what's the point in merging them? How is it different than having separate zones?

Personaly, I would like a combination of all of the above. Zones are not merged, but continents are divided into subcontinents, Vashj'ir style. This way, OG zones still have separate maps but the questing experience could be tied to subcontinents and be based on the ongoing storylines pushing the important lore bits forward. Additionally, since the quests are tied to the subcontinents and not just zones, not all of the zones would need to have a big questline, which could help with a workload. Perhaps some subcontinents could be (at least partially) delegated to low-level leveling, but you wouldn't experience the whole world when leveling (so you can finish the whole story instead of jumping between zones every few quests). In some cases, zones could be used for both low and high level content (in different areas) to put high-level players in lowbie areas, so the new players see the game being alive and are inspired by all high-level characters they meet along the way.
The world would be then filled with zone-specific activities to encourage travel. Of course there would be world quests and world event all over, but I could see also some additional activities and minigames, making the whole world useful for the max level players.

In terms of geographical changes three priorities would be:
* joining TBC zones with the rest of the world
* removing all the unnatural transitions in the world, including the "mountain boxes". Make the world feel like an actual place, not a collection of zones.
* increasing the size of the zones to make them work better with dragonflying

Of course, some people would need new zones, so there should be some new zones too. Hovewer, given all the high-level questlines in the old world, I could imagine adding just one or two new zones at launch, with more being added in patches. The new zones would need to be close to the old world, but they shouldn't just make them up in places where there were no zones before. How to solve this problem? UNDERGROUND zones. As much as we may not like them, in the context of an expansion played at least partially in a revamped world, these zones would not hurt nearly as much as having a full-on underground expac. And having them under the existing zones would allow Blizz to add new things to the world without messing up the continents we already know.

[Zers Editor]

She didn't swap sides, it's Fyrakk doing a table-flip what she wants to avoid.
My prediction is that she will go to a pact with Alex: all dragonkin are under her protection, but the ones that want to transform into titan-empowered are free to go.
She will enforce the freedom of choice that Alex promised her in the past. And the aspects will have to accept because they can't reproduce anymore.

I'm pretty sure that their reproduction will return along with the powers. And that 10.2.5 will most likely be about Vyranoth and the Aspects meeting/questioning Tyr and setting boundaries for him, judging by the novel excerpt and the recent Millenium interview.

[Lady Atia]

I'm pretty sure that their reproduction will return along with the powers. And that 10.2.5 will most likely be about Vyranoth and the Aspects meeting/questioning Tyr and setting boundaries for him, judging by the novel excerpt and the recent Millenium interview.

Btw, the novel is releasing on Halloween - can't wait to binge read it! The Sylvanas one was awesome, quite a step up from the boring sidestory that was the Shadowlands prerelease book lol. I know people complain when they "put important bits in the books", but on the other side, it feels like they steal my money if the book ends up being an 100% unimportant, unrelated side story that literally has 0 impact on anything on top of being not good lol.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Of course, some people would need new zones, so there should be some new zones too. Hovewer, given all the high-level questlines in the old world, I could imagine adding just one or two new zones at launch, with more being added in patches. The new zones would need to be close to the old world, but they shouldn't just make them up in plases where there were no zones before. How to solve this problem? UNDERGROUND zones. As much as we may not like them, in the context of an expansion played at least partially in a revamped world, these zones would hurt nearly as much as having a full-on underground expac. And having them under the existing zones would allow Blizz to add new things to the world without messing up the continents we already know.

Yeah, i wouldn't want full expansion being underground but having new zones with story being underground and having storylines, new gameplay stuff above the ground with revamped zones at the same time would be good for me.

[Makorus]

Yes, and he does that by corrupting it.

Vyranoth straight up tells us his plans.

Nope, he doesn't lmao.

[Nymrohd]

Nope, he doesn't lmao.

I think if you check the encounter journal, he corrupts the seed and sets it aflame and I guess the idea is sympathetic magic; the seed goes on fire sets the tree on fire, sets the Dream on fire, sets Azeroth on fire.

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Yeah, i wouldn't want full expansion being underground but having new zones with story being underground and having storylines, new gameplay stuff above the ground with revamped zones at the same time would be good for me.

Honestly I feel that a proper revamp would add some underground zones for the simple reason that some underground areas were always a part of the old world and just not explored. The obvious one is Hyjal Deeps/Barrows but I could see an underground part below Blackrock Mountain with an open world version of Shadowforged City but also linking it to Molten Core and all the cave areas in Searing Gorge. Beyond that you have some areas that are available in dungeons which could stay that way (Terramok, Wailing Caverns). There are other cave systems possible but I am just not sure if they are better as zones or as new dungeons; e.g. the Oracle Caves in Stonetalon and whatever Titan ruins are beneath Bael Modan and Alterac Valley

[Raetary]

Nope, he doesn't lmao.

Yes, he's setting the tree aflame.
... by corrupting it.

Because infusing something with elemental fire, makes it burn.

[Hitei]

You don't have to tell a new player everything, just the basic stuff that gives context for future appearances.

10.2 is a good example. An entirely new player will not have any idea why the tree is so important to the Nelves, nor why Forsaken are there. But just a bit of context would change that.

The best way to approach this would be to give new players enough context that they feel compelled to go to other old zones and see more of the story.
When a new player makes an Orc they have years of story that they have no context for. You could just tell them to go through it chronologically, or you could give them enough context that they realize that Siege of Orgrimmar would be an interesting next step on their own.

Feels sort of like kicking the can down the road. New player doesn't understand new tree growing vs new player doesn't understand old tree burning.

The best way to approach it would be to clean break between pre-"version 3" and post-v3. Time skip 20-30 years and contextualize new players in the ongoing events they are facing, not try and point them roughly in the direction of a bunch of stuff that's just going to rabbit hole.

A new orc player doesn't need to learn about the Siege of Orgrimmar, they need to know they are a grunt and the botani lurking in Durotar's relatively new jungle or whatever are dangerous and there's primalists working with harpies in the northern barrens. Just like a new undead player doesn't need to know about Sylvanas' narrative, they need to know they serve the Desolate Council and that things are tense between them and the nearby Void Elves who have turned Scholomance into an academy for the study of the Void.

Trying to teach lore to a new player is a pipe dream. It was a pipe dream in Vanilla when characters were all fairly one-note, and there were just a handful of major groups and events to deal with. It's a pipe dream in a pipe dream in the current game, where major characters all have long storylines with a bunch of different arcs and the world is so much more complex. You are better off just moving on to a new era and letting them poke around in old stuff if they get curious.

But as above, I imagine that's not really what people (veteran players) want out of a revamp. They don't want a bunch of all new plotlines disconnected from old zone context, focused on providing a foundation for new expansions, they have a bunch of existing plotlines they want addressed. They don't want Void Elves in WPL, they want turbo Scarlet Crusaders and the Kirin Tor making a new version of Dalaran. They don't want the Night Elves moving to a new land where they might be safe and have peace, they want them doubling down on their old holdings in Hyjal and also for them to keep hunting the Forsaken.