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

[Makorus]

Heavy Metal instead of Rock Opera.

Or pop rock, as Dragonflight feels sometimes.

When was Warcraft ever heavy metal outside of concept art?

Warcraft 3 has the same structure and theming as a Disney movie LMAO

[Nymrohd]

No.

Battlemage is like the boss from Sauramar raid.

The issue is entirely theme here. Enchancement has the mechanics and the effects of a battle mage down. Spell and armor enchantments, a mix of melee with spell casting; close range AoE spells and longer range ST spells and even a dash of summoning. A battle mage would have a near identical toolkit to enhancement. But it would look different because of race, armor and weapon choices.

[Jaggler]

The issue is entirely theme here. Enchancement has the mechanics and the effects of a battle mage down. Spell and armor enchantments, a mix of melee with spell casting; close range AoE spells and longer range ST spells and even a dash of summoning. A battle mage would have a near identical toolkit to enhancement. But it would look different because of race, armor and weapon choices.

There is also DH, DK and arguably retribution that also kinda fit that niche. just not with the "Arcane" motif a mage usually has.

[Ferlion]

When was Warcraft ever heavy metal outside of concept art?

Warcraft 3 has the same structure and theming as a Disney movie LMAO

When was Warcraft ever heavy metal outside of concept art?

Warcraft 3 has the same structure and theming as a Disney movie LMAO

I mean, most stories have the same basic structure and themes regardless of tone or genre. So that's a pretty silly statement.

For all Warcraft 3 was about overcoming differences, it was also about giant demons and sacrifice and blood and death. Armies marching and willpower made manifest against impossible odds. Holding the line, and marching against the oncoming storm. Grom Hellscream was a character who was literally being eaten alive by demonic forces because of an iron will.

Whereas Dragonflight is a bit more... Tear in my beard, let's talk things through.

Mind, heavy metal isn't devoid of the expression of emotion. It's an important aspect of the genre.

This isn't inherently bad. There is a place for it. Dragonflight was expressly stated to be a break, some time to cool down. And frankly, Blizzard is trying to set up the world as everyone getting along and having learned from the past mistakes of the Horde. To show they aren't monsters who literally nailed civilians to the walls of buildings in Alliance questing.

Confronting trauma through understanding and love instead of violence and aggression.

It's all very enlightened and mature and grown up.

Until you, you know, realize the Orc feeling sorry for himself and not being blamed by the Dragons was responsible for aiding in the gang-rape of Alexstraza.
Until you realize the Dwarf dragon feeling sorry for not helping the Black Dragonflight more was lamenting monsters who killed, plundered and destroyed without care.
Until you realize that Horde characters trying to help like they did nothing wrong are explicitly implicit in genocide and murder and literally nailing civilians to the wall.

Which is honestly the biggest issue with the tone, and the difference between the Rock Opera vs Heavy Metal or pop metal..

It's less opposing forces at arms and tensions abound but not fighting each other because they wouldn't survive it, even if they didn't agree.

And more "Oh, it's ok, these people deserve to be forgiven for genocide".

It's like a CW drama. "Oh, this vampire just came into town and killed dozens and dozens of people in cold blood, but he's snarky and popular so let's forgive it all, and also this other vampire rips people to pieces and literally puts their corpses back together but it's all tragic because he feels really, really, really bad about it, isn't it all so tragic, and ohh, we should really be sure to dig into how the people who hate these vampires and have their entire lives are wrong because man, they are really just misunderstood".... except they still kill without care and the bodies keep piling up.

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The issue is entirely theme here. Enchancement has the mechanics and the effects of a battle mage down. Spell and armor enchantments, a mix of melee with spell casting; close range AoE spells and longer range ST spells and even a dash of summoning. A battle mage would have a near identical toolkit to enhancement. But it would look different because of race, armor and weapon choices.

Sure, but that's true for pretty much every class. The thematic of guardian is all that really separates it from a Warrior. Hell, the thematics of a Paladin using magic and not just brute force are all that differentiate it from a Warrior.

Same with Warlock and Mage and Priest.

Demon hunter, monk and rogue.

[Syphin33]

So what's gonna happen is when the sword in silithus is pulled out, it will leave a tunnel to the other side of azeroth leading to Avaloren.

[Chickat]

seeing how "popular" was zaralek, i doubt an underground expansion is going to be well received

Honestly, I think Zaralek was very well recived at first. And its later downfall has nothing to do with it being underground. Its because they overtuned the rares, and under reward anyone actually doing the content. All DF zones are a graveyard because of that.

[Nymrohd]

There is also DH, DK and arguably retribution that also kinda fit that niche. just not with the "Arcane" motif a mage usually has.

It really is a matter of theme.

In tabletop RPGs two of the three major pespectives in design are Simulation vs Gameplay. Simulationists want among other things for the game's rulebook to discreetly describe every action. Gamists just want there to be rules so they can achieve the end results they want. A common way this is presented on the game table is this issue; a Gamist would say, ok there are rules that do exactly or nearly exactly what I want but under a completely different theme; I will take the rules chassis as is and just reskin it. They'd take Enhancement Shaman and just say they are playing a battle mage.

This happens in wow and has happened for years; Dark Apotheosis blood elf warlocks playing Demon Hunters were all the rage in MoP (and before them Night Elf Rogues) and a BM or Surv hunter with engineering and some creative use of macros can very much pretend they are a tinker. It's not like private servers often create new artwork in order to make such classes available, they just use the icons and sfx available.

At the end of the day the issue is that a class is more than a rules item for WoW though. Things like the class halls tie classes to something greater and the game might adress you by your class instead of your race on rare occasion. And even people in favour of class skins would be unlikely to approve of something so radically different in theme as making Enhancement or Frost DK into a battle mage.

Really, Blizzard has created a game with an impressive breadth of archetypes, many of them very restrictive (by being part of racial identities) and in practice only allows a fraction of them to be playable. And that is definitely very problematic for players because my experience with RPG players is that the desire to play an archetype is among the most common reasons for playing these games.

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So what's gonna happen is when the sword in silithus is pulled out, it will leave a tunnel to the other side of azeroth leading to Avaloren.

How is that sword going to be pulled out without a creature the size of Sargeras floating to Azeroth?

[LalaGamer]

Any good leak like Dragonflight picture with Alexstrasza ??.

[Chickat]

I have no beef with Teriz so nothing to apologize for. The people who get into 20-page long arguments with him because they can't fathom how someone could possibly like a class or aesthetic that they don't are the ones who could benefit from a bit of self-reflection.

Same. I actually agree with him and think most of his ideas are cool. Sometimes he can be a bit stubborn, but I dont think Ive ever been too disrespectful or anything.

[matijwow]

Any good leak like Dragonflight picture with Alexstrasza ??.

Devs are too afraid to get Doomhammered by Metzen. Nothing yet.

[Chickat]

1 thing i want to see next expansion: an update to characters models. even the "new" ones are showing their age now

Doubt they will ever do that tbh. They dont need it either imo. They are already very expressive.

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10.2.5 - From the Ashes (placeholder)

• Help Keeper Tyr uncover the truth about the ancient horrors buried underneath Tirisfal.
• Horde and Alliance unite against a foe returning to claim Lordaeron: the Scarlet Onslaught.
• Settle once and for all who's the legitimate heir to the throne of Lordaeron, and what becomes of its land.
• Unlock the Paladin class for all races.
• Get ready for the upcoming expansion. What is the Harbinger after?

That sounds juicy. Hopefully its something like that.

[NoTimeToDie5426]

Devs are too afraid to get Doomhammered by Metzen. Nothing yet.

lol picturing that made me belly laugh

[Chickat]

- Revamp of the faction hub zones and cities at least.
- Paladins for all
- Dragonriding for older mounts including gryphons and Wyverns
- No new continent, but a gradual updating and rediscovery of the old world.

By the last one I mean Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, Northrend. Later on perhaps Pandaria and even Outland.

I wouldn't want them to revamp Pandaria. Its perfect the way it is and still gorgeous.

[Zers Editor]

https://blizzardwatch.com/2023/10/17/scaleborn-wow/

Warning: this one has some minor spoilers for "War of the Scaleborn".

[Pheraz]

I mean, most stories have the same basic structure and themes regardless of tone or genre. So that's a pretty silly statement.

For all Warcraft 3 was about overcoming differences, it was also about giant demons and sacrifice and blood and death. Armies marching and willpower made manifest against impossible odds. Holding the line, and marching against the oncoming storm. Grom Hellscream was a character who was literally being eaten alive by demonic forces because of an iron will.

Whereas Dragonflight is a bit more... Tear in my beard, let's talk things through.

Mind, heavy metal isn't devoid of the expression of emotion. It's an important aspect of the genre.

This isn't inherently bad. There is a place for it. Dragonflight was expressly stated to be a break, some time to cool down. And frankly, Blizzard is trying to set up the world as everyone getting along and having learned from the past mistakes of the Horde. To show they aren't monsters who literally nailed civilians to the walls of buildings in Alliance questing.

Confronting trauma through understanding and love instead of violence and aggression.

It's all very enlightened and mature and grown up.

...

Grown up... So ... At the end of the day we play fictional characters of fictional races (except humans) that spend most of their time smashing things in faces of fictional monsters or other fancy chars.
We need a reason to smash things into heads and loot their god damn corpses. I mean... What would be a reason to do this IRL? Right, if bad things happen. I'm not arguing that IRL and a video game should be compared on this level but sometimes it's nice to be really abstract on things.
I really don't think we need "grown up stories" whatever this might be. I think Warcraft needs entertainment. Ofc faction drama can get on our nerves at times, especially if it's all reasoned by some ultra bad story like sylvanas super mega plan and blizzards annoying "you will see".

[Ferlion]

Grown up... So ... At the end of the day we play fictional characters of fictional races (except humans) that spend most of their time smashing things in faces of fictional monsters or other fancy chars.
We need a reason to smash things into heads and loot their god damn corpses. I mean... What would be a reason to do this IRL? Right, if bad things happen. I'm not arguing that IRL and a video game should be compared on this level but sometimes it's nice to be really abstract on things.
I really don't think we need "grown up stories" whatever this might be. I think Warcraft needs entertainment. Ofc faction drama can get on our nerves at times, especially if it's all reasoned by some ultra bad story like sylvanas super mega plan and blizzards annoying "you will see".

Silly excuse. Stories are supposed to make us feel things. That it's fictional doesn't matter. Some of the most long lasting and enduring stories in the history of humankind are about fictional characters of fictional races.

"But it's fiction" is such a copout answer for people who don't have a rebuttal.

"Fantasy can't be grown up" is a mindset I'll never understand.

[Shadowferal]

Isn't a battle mage basically an enh shaman? What exactly would you want out of a battle mage class?

Yea...I thought about battle mage, and only see enh shaman. Heck, any spec of dk or pally would also fit. I didn't care much about the Nightborne interpretation of "spellblade."

[Woke it Up]

Heavy Metal instead of Rock Opera.

Or pop rock, as Dragonflight feels sometimes.

Yea WoD the heavy metal expansion everyone loved

[Ferlion]

Yea WoD the heavy metal expansion everyone loved

I mean, thematically yes?

WoD wasn't hated because of thematics, it was hated because we didn't get a whole lot of content.

[Scyth]

I mean, thematically yes?

WoD wasn't hated because of thematics, it was hated because we didn't get a whole lot of content.

Speak for yourself. I hated the theme of WoD.