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

[Izalla]

The same day it was posted datamining had already indicated most of its claims. How likely is that? Almost certainly someone saw that datamining and then came here to spin a story.

Datamining what? I was discussing a description of the zone that will supposedly be available in the Blizzcon demo, not the D4 leak.

The D4 leak mentioned SoA which is the only connection that post has to the D4 leak, but we don't even know what SoA supposedly stands for to know if they are actually related or a damn coincidence.

[D4NNYB0Y]

I don't know. I think anyone would be able to tell Avaloren is the name of a place. It's not like the majority of WoW players knew Outland used to be called Draenor when WoD released, only people who closely followed the lore did. Besides, red herrings aren't really Blizz's style. I think every single expansion title that leaked early, including Dragonflight, some people were saying it was to mislead the players.

Mists of pandaria? Burning crusade?

I meant a red herring on behalf of leakers, not Blizzard. Also, the title of the expansion was "The Burning Crusade". The Burning Legion was featured in all 3 prior Warcraft games. Avaloren has only been mentioned in Dragonflight afaik. Even Shadowlands was mentioned in-game as early as WotlK in the DK starting quest line.

Brewmasters have been in the lore since Warcraft 3. Pandaria contains the word Panda and is mentioned in-game. It doesn't take much to conclude Pandaria probably has Asian/Chinese themes.

Avaloren does not invoke anything at a glance. Possibly Avalon if folks are familiar with Arthurian myth. So it's going to be an Arthurian expansion then?

I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just poor marketing imo and thus unlikely.

[Daniri]

Datamining what? I was discussing a description of the zone that will supposedly be available in the Blizzcon demo, not the D4 leak.

The D4 leak mentioned SoA which is the only connection that post has to the D4 leak, but we don't even know what SoA supposedly stands for to know if they are actually related or a damn coincidence.

Sorry, got mixed up from when you were talking about the D4 leak from before. But since the D4 leak is obviously based on the datamining, we can dismiss the SoA thing pretty safely.

[Bsirk]

That dude either is leaking info or is just pretending to leak info. Either way his posts are all being asserted as known (by him) facts, not arguments. I dunno if there is any point to argue with him over his posts.

However, he has yet to show any proof whatsoever of his claims. I'm going to stay on the side of it's just bs until the 1st. I will gladly say I was wrong to him on here if he's correct. I just think that will never have to happen. Totally talking about 22mage22 leak btw.

[Izalla]

I agree that faction war should be dead, but racial tensions being eliminated would be incredibly stupid. These are people who have had generations of deep hatred and warfare. Most of them are not the racial leaders who decided to drop the conflicts. In the same way it never made sense for nelves and tauren to behave like mortal enemies because of the faction divide, it would also make no sense for all the lower level military members or general citizens to have completely forgiven and accepted their former enemies. The average Joe need not have hated the other side in the first place if they never had direct personal contact with them. There should be disputes, tensions, and conflicts, between races within the factions as well, as some are less willing to buddy up with former enemies or resent their leaders for making them put down the torches and pitch forks, as well as resenting their racial peers who have accepted the peace. There should be nelves who never forgive the horde, and worgen who never forgive the forsaken. There should be forsaken that never stop resenting the humans who surely will always see then as rotting abominations. There should always be orcs who resent humans causing them to be born into internment camps. Even if none of it is acted on in a large scale way so as to cause another faction war, there should be unhappy people among many of the races who either split off into antagonistic groups that are not faction aligned anymore, or otherwise just add some variety to the attitudes you encounter. We've seen it already with the druids of the flame who split from the night elf survivors.

[Pinksocking]

This was the post:



WoW info is minimal, but still has some credibility so far.

that spiritborn sounds so fking fake

[Izalla]

However, he has yet to show any proof whatsoever of his claims. I'm going to stay on the side of it's just bs until the 1st. I will gladly say I was wrong to him on here if he's correct. I just think that will never have to happen. Totally talking about 22mage22 leak btw.

Oh I wasn't making an argument that he is legit. I was just pointing out there is no point arguing with him like he is any other poster making suggestions or arguments for what should or could happen. He is claiming insider knowledge and so you can debunk him, or ignore him, but you can't change his mind.

[Paula Deen]

Blizzard can't write a compelling faction war if players can't handle a pure, one sided victory without eventual compensation from time to time. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my two cents

Yeah this is it right here. BFA should have ended with Sylvanas on a pike. The amount of butthurt over the Zandalari getting stomped was bad enough but the whining about how burning a world tree was just a means to an end was unacceptable.

I say it a lot...but I will say it again.

The average WoW Player is a crack addict with the IQ of a toddler. They cannot comprehend losing in a video game.

[matijwow]

Shit, Orcs Again

Close. Shit Orcs Again.

[Izalla]

Sorry, got mixed up from when you were talking about the D4 leak from before. But since the D4 leak is obviously based on the datamining, we can dismiss the SoA thing pretty safely.

It's possible the poster saw datamining and made all that up. It's likely even. But they posted using the changed name before most dataminers realised that name did indeed exist, by the looks of things. So he either lucked out massively and found that little tidbit with the changed name when most everyone else missed it at first, or he is legit. Both are entirely possible, though the former is more likely.

[Leowyld]

I agree that faction war should be dead, but racial tensions being eliminated would be incredibly stupid. These are people who have had generations of deep hatred and warfare. Most of them are not the racial leaders who decided to drop the conflicts. In the same way it never made sense for nelves and tauren to behave like mortal enemies because of the faction divide, it would also make no sense for all the lower level military members or general citizens to have completely forgiven and accepted their former enemies. The average Joe need not have hated the other side in the first place if they never had direct personal contact with them. There should be disputes, tensions, and conflicts, between races within the factions as well, as some are less willing to buddy up with former enemies or resent their leaders for making them put down the torches and pitch forks, as well as resenting their racial peers who have accepted the peace. There should be nelves who never forgive the horde, and worgen who never forgive the forsaken. There should be forsaken that never stop resenting the humans who surely will always see then as rotting abominations. There should always be orcs who resent humans causing them to be born into internment camps. Even if none of it is acted on in a large scale way so as to cause another faction war, there should be unhappy people among many of the races who either split off into antagonistic groups that are not faction aligned anymore, or otherwise just add some variety to the attitudes you encounter. We've seen it already with the druids of the flame who split from the night elf survivors.

There is a lot of tension between different races in Guild Wars 2. Humans and Charr have a lot of bad history, for instance. And it has been used for story. But it doesn't functionally limit the players in any way. So, that sort of balance can happen with an MMO.

[Woggmer]

I agree that faction war should be dead, but racial tensions being eliminated would be incredibly stupid. These are people who have had generations of deep hatred and warfare. Most of them are not the racial leaders who decided to drop the conflicts.

Yep. This is right on the nose... considering the fact that Genn Greymane never showed up to Lor'themar and Thalyssra's wedding. So his wife, Mia Greymane, went to the wedding in his stead. Tension still exists, and it isn't something that can just magically disappear.

And even if the Horde and Alliance faction conflict ends, a new one will start in the form of the Light vs Void. (Especially with Turalyon at the throne, the Void Elves forced out of Silvermoon, that one incident that Alleria did near the Sunwell, along with the Lightbound Draenei going after the Mag'har, and the "ever-popular" Scarlet Crusade going after the Forsaken right at their backyard.)

[Izalla]

Yeah this is it right here. BFA should have ended with Sylvanas on a pike. The amount of butthurt over the Zandalari getting stomped was bad enough but the whining about how burning a world tree was just a means to an end was unacceptable.

I say it a lot...but I will say it again.

The average WoW Player is a crack addict with the IQ of a toddler. They cannot comprehend losing in a video game.

It was pretty bad at the end of MoP too, when Varian claimed the Alliance would end the Horde if they ever misbehaved again, but we all knew it was an empty threat and it didn't make the Alliance feel powerful or like they had won in any way. And really, lorewise they should probably have just disbanded the Horde then and there instead of shaking their finger and saying "don't do it again."

[Polybius]

SL and DF are examples of the story getting boring without them. Because both sides aren't in contention with each other, the outside threats have to be interesting enough to hold the expansion together, and the only threat that managed that was the Legion. And even then, Stormheim still included some faction tension thanks to Sylvanas and Greymane.

What benefits do we get out of removing faction conflict? (And I know Cross-Faction is a thing, but a gameplay feature shouldn't dictate the story.)

Faction tension in SL and DF would have been out of place and shoehorned. Tension is good, but Human v. Orc has gotten tiring, and so has Blizzard's stubbornness to give closure (e.g. Night Elves, Worgen, Tauren, Trolls...). It only worked in a microcosm, but never as the overarching central plot. Hell, it ruined Azshara and N'Zoth's first outing.

[D4NNYB0Y]

that spiritborn sounds so fking fake

Seems very weak to me. To clarify, this was posted the same day Wowhead posted their patch notes datamining, and the Russian Youtuber published his video with the leaked data from a D4 hacker group.

I think the data is real, but this leaker pulled keywords and came up with a fake leak. The leak itself is poorly written, and I suspect they used ChatGPT to create a draft.

I wouldn't put much stake into the SoA acronym. It was mentioned in other WoW leaks prior to this.

[Grazrug]

Close. Shit Orcs Again.

Racism. Feel bad.

[Rathwell]

Yeah this is it right here. BFA should have ended with Sylvanas on a pike. The amount of butthurt over the Zandalari getting stomped was bad enough but the whining about how burning a world tree was just a means to an end was unacceptable.

It does seem kind of weird how Night Elves haven't really had much in way of wins through out World of Warcraft.

They're already being attacked in Ashenvale, but then in Cataclysm the Horde's encroaching on their territory even worse than before, they get kind of nuked in Stonetalon, in Feralas Thalanaar and Feathermoon were both destroyed by the Cataclysm, then they were attacked by both the Naga and the Grimtotem, and in Hyjal they had the whole Firelands debacle, and of course Sylvanas eventually makes war in Darkshore, burns down their tree and genocides the Night Elves, and raises their wardens into undeath, and in the end they don't even really get to kill Sylvanas.

Instead, Sylvanas is just sort of sorry and the Arbiter makes her to do some community service so they can call it even-stevens.

I mean, Sylvanas's head should've been the least they could've been given. Just something after all these years of bad times for the Kaldorei

[Grazrug]

It was pretty bad at the end of MoP too, when Varian claimed the Alliance would end the Horde if they ever misbehaved again, but we all knew it was an empty threat and it didn't make the Alliance feel powerful or like they had won in any way. And really, lorewise they should probably have just disbanded the Horde then and there instead of shaking their finger and saying "don't do it again."

What was Bad? That you can't enslave or delete the other half of the playerbase? Get real?

[Scyth]

What benefits do we get out of removing faction conflict? (And I know Cross-Faction is a thing, but a gameplay feature shouldn't dictate the story.)

They just dont make sense when you know eventually they will make one faction apologise and make the other one accept it, before they band together again to fight the next big bad.

As much as I dont want faction wars anymore I’m sure Blizz will bring them back eventually. All I hope for is that it won’t be whole xpax centred around it and just a patch, because it’s just not fun.

[Izalla]

What was Bad? That you can't enslave or delete the other half of the playerbase? Get real?

No, you-- ugh.

LORE-WISE DUDE. I main an orc... good grief.

We are talking about how gameplay and player reaction prevents them from ever telling a proper faction war story that doesn't end in an unsatisfying stalemate where neither side is allowed to actually win anything.