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

[Azalar]

Will you say that after every second quest has a five-minute scene of ethereals talking about their feelings with no facial expressions and a monotone voice?

It matters little in quests because most you have is text and various NPC animations, but where it'd be indeed boggling would be in cinematics and closeups I guess.

[Worldshaper]

Th part about Draenor makes me think; could be that there really was an Old God in Draenor and was killed by a Night Warrior? That would explain the permanent night In Shadowmoon Valley, exactly like happened in Darkshore when Tyrande made the ritual.

Interesting theory. It's also pretty weird that Draenor also has two moons like Azeroth, a big one and a small one. The bigger one is literally called The Pale Lady. The smaller moon is also darker.

[Teriz]

I've seen people bring this up before and it's never not silly. Not having a face means nothing.

Not having an Ethereal that anyone gives two poops about means quite a lot.

[Hitei]

Will you say that after every second quest has a five-minute scene of ethereals talking about their feelings with no facial expressions and a monotone voice?

Yes? Do you not remember who one of the most well received characters of Shadowlands was?
Or who the absolutely best received character in BfA was?

People have no problem with faceless characters. That's why Master Chief, Samus and Vivi were wildly popular. To begin with, IGC characters facial animations are easily the weakest part. No one is writing home about Alexstrasza's facial expressions, and no one remembers the Wrath Gate cutscene because Bolvar's facial expressions were so good (let alone Putress, Saurfang and Arthas, all three of whom are masked).

Realistically you can do nearly as much expressiveness in head wrapping movement and body language as you can with wow's regular facial rigs--but people aren't super invested in how realistic or expressive the facial expressions in a video game are. Voice acting is the biggest factor, and then writing and then the general vibe of whatever the cutscene is.

[Nymrohd]

People thought a Legion expansion would be just more neon green everywhere (which everyone was sick of by the end of WoD), but it ended up having surprisingly little of it. When we think of K'aresh, we tend to think of a Netherstorm-esque purple space zone, but if Blizzard ends up using it as the setting for an expansion, I think they would want it to have more variety in aesthetics.

And Legion solved this by bringing the Highmountain, Suramar, Ravencrest and the Moonguard as well as the Tomb of Sargeras (who we knew about) plus an elf/nightmare/dream zone and a vrykul zone, rounding things out with some demons spread everywhere and a few blue dragons.

I have no idea what K'aresh would bring. My personal idea would be to use K'aresh as the center of a great trading network that visits multiple planets.

[Makorus]

Here's Thrall having "nothing to do with MoP":



He had a big role in War Crimes as well.

5.1 didn't come out until late November.

So him being on the keyart for Blizzcon 2011 was supposed to hint at content from after 2012. Interesting

[Nyel]

Why the hell did this thread get 30 new pages over night

[bruxx]

My main problem with them is that they don't have a recognizable face. Would we really have them as a prominent race for an expansion and have them involved in most of the cutscenes?

tbf, not having a face is almost a plus with those awkward cinematic animations with the jaws flapping around like chewing gum. There could still be easily identifiable factors such as energy types inside the bandages, bandage color, armor/decoration and I remember this nice concept where they wore masks

[Ateo]

Its still EXTREMELY cheap marketing for them. They have never had the goal of making money with the event. Its a fantastic marketing tool. Nothing more. That wont change with them losing a little more money than normal. Still very cheap by marketing standards.

If the marketing tool isn't selling out, it means the market is not reacting to your marketing.

Aka, it's a failed campaign.

[Teriz]

5.1 didn't come out until late November.

So him being on the keyart for Blizzcon 2011 was supposed to hint at content from after 2012. Interesting

Uh MoP released on Sepetember 25, 2012, and 5.1 came out on November 27, 2012. What are you talking about?

The point is that your assertion that Thrall had "nothing to do with MoP" is resoundingly false.

[Darkarath]

Why the hell did this thread get 30 new pages over night

Do not worry, nothing relevant at all. We are just eager to get anything at this point. I would say that it would get even worse until things start to improve.

We need something tangible.

[Hitei]

If the marketing tool isn't selling out, it means the market is not reacting to your marketing.

Aka, it's a failed campaign.

Do... Do you think that the goal of Blizzcon is to market to the people that physically show up to the convention? Lol?

[Gloriandus]

I still like "Eclipse"; perhaps in-game it's unlike a normal eclipse, something catastrophic, anger of Elune or whatnot. We're forced into the oft-rumored underground world, eventually resurfacing in a later patch to find Azeroth changed.

It would be terribly unpopular given the "Night Elves always get screwed over" trope, but maybe the Titans once again rip the nascent world tree out which triggers Elune's wrath and that's what kicks it off. I still don't like the "the Titans are the true villains" stuff they've been pushing in the story, though. Hopefully they themselves are just deceived...but then again I''m weary of the "there's a bigger badder out there!" trope, too.

[Worldshaper]

Ways to contribute:

• Keep an eye on social media accounts, both from Blizzard official sources and content creators. There might be clues.
• Browse hashtags etc online to see if some partner of Blizzard (doing BlizzCon prep or whatever) slips something.
• Scan through trademark databases in search for new names from Blizzard.
• Look through the merch shop to see if new products are released that spoil anything.
• Check out the Blizzard websites to see if any new subdomains appear, or if anything slips in the code.
• Keep checking sources like MMO-Champ, Reddit and 4chan to see if anything leaks there.

Anything I'm forgetting?

[ImTheMizAwesome]

Do not worry, nothing relevant at all. We are just eager to get anything at this point. I would say that it would get even worse until things start to improve.

We need something tangible.

i think it will be kinda interesting if we end up without any leaks besides algarian stormrider until the reveal.

[Nyel]

Honestly, why would Blizzard send out "clues" this time? They've never done it before. Everything that leaked for previous expansions was accidentally or through datamining (?) and not official hints.

[Santandame]

???? Chen was barely even relevant in the expansion. What a reach lmao.

We could have Tyr hook us into the expansion, or Odyn or whoever. Obviously, we don't know who because the expansion isn't out yet. Or 10.2. Or 10.2.5. Or 10.2.7.

What, do you assume we just go there and no one is gonna be there?

He’s hardly irrelevant.

As well as an entire zone based around his story, he plays a significant role in the Dread Wastes campaign as well as Vol’jin’s entire story in MoP, particularly the Escalation patch.

That’s not to mention the opening cinematic. As well as all of the above he shows up in various other misc quests and events throughout the expansion. He’s the most represented Pandaren character after Lorewalker Cho and Taran Zhu, and they were arguably the main characters of MoP alongside Garrosh and Vol’jin.

[Ateo]

Do... Do you think that the goal of Blizzcon is to market to the people that physically show up to the convention? Lol?

Do you seriously think it isn't?

They could run another prerecorded blizzconline for a fragment of the price.


Gtfo with this backwards thinking.

No matter how you cut it. Blizzcon is a failure this year compared to every one of its predecessors and it's performance will absolutely dictate if we see another one/how much is invested into future blizzcons.

Stop white knighting like some blinded fanboy and have a real conversation.

[Hitei]

i think it will be kinda interesting if we end up without any leaks besides algarian stormrider until the reveal.

The last few expansions have only leaked names and very minor points. I can't remember the last time we got an actual in depth story leak. WoD? I think the NGA leakers for Legion probably had a lot of information but they only allowed out small details about who/what was going to show up. BfA feature leaked but I don't recall there being much beyond that. SL only very barely leaked and DF only leaked the absolute largest features.

[Teriz]

This brings up another point; If Avaloren revolves around Tyr and Odyn, wouldn't that indicate another expansion cinematic with titan constructs doing stuff after we had the opening cinematic of Dragonflight where titan constructs were doing stuff?