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

[Hitei]

I mean, that's the only thing that would bring me back, but it feels like a distant dream.

Verbatim last announcement, they looked at Dragonflight's zone amount as "expected for a WoW expansion." The "1-2 sizzle features and 4 zones" feels like the standard expectation now that this has become an increasingly corporate boxed product. It's been a frog in the heating up pot thing for a while now in terms of how gradually the scaling back became.

I really wanna be wrong.

Do people really care about the number of zone divisons?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

You're gonna be so wrong... this just smells of the "blue eye bolvar and the drac'thyr" debunking all over again. There were SO MANY post like yours just bending your brain and picking apart every little pixel explaining why it was a fake.

I'm leaning on fake because the screenshots are playing it very safe. They look *very* good, just like WoW's style, but all of the assets look like something that exists, and the environments ressemble places that we've already seen.

The Dracthyr leak was something completely new that people even said it didn't look like WoW. Everything in this leak looks like something that already exists in the game, just reconfigured.

[Woggmer]

Speaking of the Wildhammer and the skies, why the hell did they live in a place like Grim Batol? Never made sense to me.

So, basically... before the clans split apart into the 3 we know (Bronzebeards, Wildhammers, and Dark Irons) they were all living together until the High King Modimus Anvilmar dies, resulting in a civil war conflict between the 3 Dwarf Clans over who gets ownership of Ironforge.

The Bronzebeards won, with the Wildhammers deciding to establish their own city in another tall mountain, Grim Batol and create a fortress that could rival Ironforge.

It didn't used to be a miserable place like how we found it in Cata... a lot of that is due to Modgud using Xal'atath to turn the shadows against the Dwarves, turning some of them into the skardyn.. resulting in Grim Batol becoming a cursed place of evil thanks to Modgud's curse. Forcing the Wildhammers to retreat again with half of the moving north to create Aeries Peak while the other half stayed in the area known as Northeron in the Twilight Highlands.

Source.

[Izalla]

So, basically... before the clans split apart into the 3 we know (Bronzebeards, Wildhammers, and Dark Irons) they were all living together until the High King Modimus Anvilmar dies, resulting in a civil war conflict between the 3 Dwarf Clans over who gets ownership of Ironforge.

The Bronzebeards won, with the Wildhammers deciding to establish their own city in another tall mountain, Grim Batol and create a fortress that could rival Ironforge.

It didn't used to be a miserable place like how we found it in Cata... a lot of that is due to Modgud using Xal'atath to turn the shadows against the Dwarves, turning some of them into the skardyn.. resulting in Grim Batol becoming a cursed place of evil thanks to Modgud's curse. Forcing the Wildhammers to retreat again with half of the moving north to create Aeries Peak while the other half stayed in the area known as Northeron in the Twilight Highlands.

Yeah I know all that stuff, I just mean, why would they make their home in a box underground when they are a sky people? Did the only really become sky people after they had to leave Grim Batol?

Okay for reals now I'm going to sleep I swear.

[Vakir]

Do people really care about the number of zone divisons?

Eh, it's true that can be arbitrary, but it's more about whether those divisions inform biome diversity or story division.

The actual point though was in reference to a world revamp (which would benefit from the inverse, as was discussed pages back, with mega-zones) as compared to the gradual shrinking of zone numbers, while overall landmass has varied. That's something on a scale I just really doubt happening. I don't get a lot of ambition vibes from how they look at the game now and how heavily everything is managed and corporatized, somewhat understandably when we look back on what we learned about the older Blizzard.

Again, I would love to be wrong. I've just been hearing it as the anticipated focus for about 3 expansions of hype now. Everyone was certain that Zandalar/Kul Tiras achievement removal and datamined armor was a "red herring" because they didn't want to see it, everyone was certain about blue-eyed Bolvar/denying the general inevitability of the Shadowlands, and so many were certain that Dragon Isles had to accompany a revamp.

[Woggmer]

Yeah I know all that stuff, I just mean, why would they make their home in a box underground when they are a sky people? Did the only really become sky people after they had to leave Grim Batol?

Okay for reals now I'm going to sleep I swear.

I'd say that seems more accurate, they were probably just like the Bronzebeards until they were forced out and decided to live in Aeries Peak and the Twilight Highlands.

[matijwow]

I'd say that seems more accurate, they were probably just like the Bronzebeards until they were forced out and decided to live in Aeries Peak and the Twilight Highlands.

"Flying is just digging through the air, lad."

[Pheraz]

IMO what looks most fake is the ground. I've never seen a ground like this. Kind of like milky dusk mud without any ground floor or flower. Like voldun without being sand

[Helothar]

This leak looks cheap and boring, this is 100% real. In general we get dragonflight 2.0

Same thought here. If this--another island expac taking place in a handful of aesthetically boring and unimaginative zones--is the big announcement they're so effing excited about, there's really nothing left in this game for me. And it seems very Blizz, prolly real.

[Selorian]

It's well-made, but I'm not convinced its real. To be clear, I don't think AI is involved. I think it's a weak argument to assert AI is related to everything fake when people have had the means to make convincing fakes manually for years. It looks far more like a kitbash of existing assets put together in a world editor alongside some Photoshop compositing. There just aren't enough unique assets on display to make me think that the things that are unique couldn't be model edits or Photoshops.

Agreed. It looks really good but I'm just not convinced it's real. The biomes seem a little too different from each other to feel like they can naturally flow into each other

[Ambulatory Cube]

11.0 needs playable Ogres, that is all.

It's gonna be so damn funny if we finally get ogres but it's these ripped Handsome Shreks instead of the fat dumpy ones



Then again, maybe we'll get some body thickness options like Dracthyr have?

[Nize]

I took another look to at the Aerie Peak bird statue and compared again to the "leak". They don't really match. Some of the things I've noticed are:

-Wings are further back in the "leak" statue than the Peak one
-Head is held higher while Peak one is somewhat looking down.
-Chest is lower in the "leak" than the peak.
-Neckline creates a V in the "leak" while it's straighter in the peak.
-Slightly longer beak in the "leak". Even trying all angles around the peak doesn't reach that length. Image CAN be stretched though, so I wouldn't put stock into this point.
-Different feather texturing especially around the arm(wing?)pit area.

I don't think it's the same statue. it doesn't mean it's not fake, but the statue came from somewhere else.

Also, has the animal model in the 4th pic been found yet?

[Merryck]

It's gonna be so damn funny if we finally get ogres but it's these ripped Handsome Shreks instead of the fat dumpy ones



Then again, maybe we'll get some body thickness options like Dracthyr have?

So it is fake then. The leak that ogre-dwarf was from was confirmed fake, and yet it's in the background of this leak. Same guy made this one?

[Dnusha]

If you're gonna leak stills from a new trailer, why would you pick the most generic looking areas of each zone?

I'm like 100% sure these are screens from a gameplay features video where camera flyes forward and locations are changing from one to another. Remember these ones?

[Ambulatory Cube]

So it is fake then. The leak that ogre-dwarf was from was confirmed fake, and yet it's in the background of this leak. Same guy made this one?

I don't think it was "confirmed" fake, everyone just assumed it to be because the hand on the storm dwarf "looked like AI". I think it was probably just squished weird or at a poor angle.

[Ferlion]

So it is fake then. The leak that ogre-dwarf was from was confirmed fake, and yet it's in the background of this leak. Same guy made this one?

I mean, I don't think that specific leak was confirmed fake, but we can likely assume fake because nobody is stupid enough to post about working on a website to get mobile ready, include a picture of their laptop, and include a picture of their cellphone.

[Darkarath]

Someone just made a thread about potential 11.0 zones

Please do not be real.

Please do not be real.

Please do not be real.

[Melorandor]

Please do not be real.

Please do not be real.

Please do not be real.

Its real lol

[Vakir]

I'm like 100% sure these are screens from a gameplay features video where camera flyes forward and locations are changing from one to another. Remember these ones?

...that doesn't really mean anything since people can try to replicate those sorts of things because they also remember those same trailers.

It would be like saying "I'm 100% sure these screens are real because it says they're from Avaloren and it's really likely we're going to Avaloren" when everyone and their mom has speculated Avaloren.

If you want to convince people you'd show the parts of the video that showcase more new and unique content.

Like how the leaked Dracthyr stuff showed the very best of that race/class, right?

Two examples above of terrible pro and con takes.

[Selorian]

Eh, it's true that can be arbitrary, but it's more about whether those divisions inform biome diversity or story division.

The actual point though was in reference to a world revamp (which would benefit from the inverse, as was discussed pages back, with mega-zones) as compared to the gradual shrinking of zone numbers, while overall landmass has varied. That's something on a scale I just really doubt happening. I don't get a lot of ambition vibes from how they look at the game now and how heavily everything is managed and corporatized, somewhat understandably when we look back on what we learned about the older Blizzard.

I don't get how people can look at Dragonflight and say "yeah, Blizzard is just phoning it in." This was an expansion where they totally revamped the talent system, made a significant update to how outdoor movement works for the first time in 15 years, completely revamped professions, made a significant overhaul to reputations, introduced a class with completely new mechanics, and for the first time ever introduced a spec mid expansion--and a spec that is so unique people often mistake it for being an entirely new role at that. They totally changed how M+ seasons work, which involves updating old dungeons and reworking entire boss fights/trash for some of the really old ones. They've totally changed how patch cycles work. They've completely revamped and unified gearing upgrades. There's been so much more iteration and communication in this expansion compared to the last 20 years.

Like, regardless of whether these things landed in general or for you in specific, you can't say they're not trying new things.