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

[Woke it Up]

And what are those gryphons? Since when dwarves in wow ride gryphons? they should ride air elementals!!1!

Tinkers are the ones taking the photo

[NikolaiShade]

I see. Very similar, most notably the shape and the red coloring on the chest.
Thanks for slightly refilling my cannister of copium for a world revamp.

Pessimistic take: The other leak with the "mobile ready" is also real

The text seems fake, the first pictures seem fakes, the most recent ones could be real. I can think of a couple scenarios:

-It's fake
-It's real
-The text is fake and the pics are real

honestly I would bet on fake simply because it's more likely to be fake than real

edit: what really screams fake is the text, the specs becoming support are a red flag imo

[Woke it Up]

I see. Very similar, most notably the shape and the red coloring on the chest.
Thanks for slightly refilling my cannister of copium for a world revamp.

Pessimistic take: The other leak with the "mobile ready" is also real

No one is that happy when finishing implementing a responsive design

[Sondrelk]

Tinkers are the ones taking the photo

The Gryphons are mechanical, which hints at Tinkers using ranged weapons and taming mechanical beasts. Survival finally comes back as the technomancer spec in the new Tinker class.

[Kiria]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of fakes in my time but this is the first one I'm willing to double down on. This definitely has a "This is it" feel.

I'm in agree'al must admit, might just feel like another meh expansion sadly, we will need to see the features.

[micwini]

The text seems fake, the first pictures seem fakes, the most recent ones could be real. I can think of a couple scenarios:

-It's fake
-It's real
-The text is fake and the pics are real

honestly I would bet on fake simply because it's more likely to be fake than real

edit: what really screams fake is the text, the specs becoming support are a red flag imo

The image leak does not have to be related to the text leak.

[Rathwell]

I'm in agree'al must admit, might just feel like another meh expansion sadly, we will need to see the features.

I think that's in part a little bit of what makes me believe it. It doesn't feel very pander-y. They're not bringing us our wish list of things from the past or revolutionizing the game. It's a new location that has some breadcrumbs in the current game, some new race they conjured up and just another run of the mill expansion with four new zones, some new NPC races and a new plotline.

Every expansion leak season there's been this fantastic pander-y leaks and then it turns out the actual expansion is more of a, "Oh, okay" kind of reveal. I think Legion is the only expansion I can remember where the big, pander-y "too good to be true" stuff was the legit stuff.

This one just feels like exactly what I'd expect Blizzard to give us. It looks right and it feels right.

[Makorus]

The text leak is the red flag.

The text leak was posted before the images, and some of the information just isn't gonna happen.

Both the text and images are referencing the same leak "concept".

[Santandame]

I can’t believe people are so resigned to the fact that this leak is real. There’s so many red flags that have already been outlined.

As well as the forum post with a paragraph which very clearly is a text leak of the website/images leak and stares that several existing specs will be turned into support specs when Blizzard have flat out denied that they won’t be doing that, that they’d make new specs instead.

[NikolaiShade]

The image leak does not have to be related to the text leak.

There are many similarities and that's a little sus

[Makorus]

I think that's in part a little bit of what makes me believe it. It doesn't feel very pander-y. They're not bringing us our wish list of things from the past or revolutionizing the game. It's a new location that has some breadcrumbs in the current game, some new race they conjured up and just another run of the mill expansion with four new zones, some new NPC races and a new plotline.

Every expansion leak season there's been this fantastic pander-y leaks and then it turns out the actual expansion is more of a, "Oh, okay" kind of reveal. I think Legion is the only expansion I can remember where the big, pander-y "too good to be true" stuff was the legit stuff.

This one just feels like exactly what I'd expect Blizzard to give us. It looks right and it feels right.

Even if it is real, the reveal trailer could be 2 hours long and the expansion could have 5000 systems.

People are assuming a lot about the expansion based on four images.

[Nyel]

Again, if Avaloren is real, what’s the premise? What’s got Iridikron to do with it? Is it just another step into the 12.0 Void expansion where Iridikron appears? Why did we need Dragonflight for all of this? Filler on top of filler until we get the real thing?

[Santandame]

The text leak is the red flag.

The text leak was posted before the images, and some of the information just isn't gonna happen.

Both the text and images are referencing the same leak "concept".

Exactly. People are throwing the towel in far too soon. Yes the images are well made but there’s so much contradictory information and red flags that just pretty much outright spell it as being fake. Everyone is just hung up on the images looking well made and not considering everything else.

@Marlamin has posted some useful info that has a chance at pointing to the images being legit but even he has said it could also just be a talented individual.

The red flags outweigh the images looking real so far.

[Makorus]

There are many similarities and that's a little sus

The text leak literally named all the zones that are featured in the image leaks, along with creatures, and it came out before the images.

[Grazrug]

Again, if Avaloren is real, what’s the premise? What’s got Iridikron to do with it? Is it just another step into the 12.0 Void expansion where Iridikron appears?

They might put him on pause until it's revealed how awful the titans are to not make us feel sorry for them when his trap hits.

[Wangming]

LOL. That figure in the background seals the deal for me, fake as fuck.

Off topic but I love your profile pick. really cool vibe.

[Rathwell]

Again, if Avaloren is real, what’s the premise? What’s got Iridikron to do with it? Is it just another step into the 12.0 Void expansion where Iridikron appears?

Might be the kind of expansion where it eventually becomes a Void expansion. I mean, Mists of Pandaria was on the surface a "peaceful Pandaria fighting the Sha" expansion with a Chinese aesthetic, but ultimately it was a story about the Old Gods.

Likewise Battle for Azeroth was on the surface a "Horde vs Alliance" 4th war expansion, but ultimately that too was all about the Old Gods.


So, perhaps this one's on the surface about Odyn's heretics as the plot thread that leads us there, but by the final patch it's a void expansion? They're just giving us this Titan Keeper stuff first to show us the bad side of the Titans before Iridikron can do his stuff

[Teriz]

I don't agree that there's nearly enough context to make that connection - this mentality seems to be born of a constant desire to be disappointed, and I say that as someone fairly disappointed in Blizzard's lack of ambition in general. The drakthyr image posted on the previous page is a great case study in constext - it looks goddamn awful and rather naked there, making it appear to be a poor scaley bait fan creation. Now that we know the high amount of customisation available to drakthyr, it's just a really poor choice of screenshot that is quite pixelated.

Further, there are effectively three pathways to take for content in a new expansion:
1. New continent grounded in Azerothian reality - "Dragon Isles/Pandaria/etc all over again"
2. Intergalactic/cosmic realm - "oh dear god it's Shadowlands again run for the hills"/"I play WoW to experience Azeroth"
3. Revamp existing content - takes significant resources and high risk of screwing player attachment to the old world up, really only one go at doing it 'right'.

The last of these is obviously in quite some demand, but I recall the Cata experience all too well and it's a miracle that a second chance at this is even on the cards. If they need more time to cook, I'm glad they're taking it.

I'm pretty sure I was one of the few who didn't really question the Dracthyr model long after its reveal. I quickly came to realize that we were getting a dragon class, and Blizzard would create something like the Dracthyr to make that possible. That's not the same situation as we have here. In this case we have Blizzard pretty much doing the same expansion again, which they have never done in the history of the game. Every expansion is a pretty solid departure from the previous one aesthetically. The pics in this leak look more like a patch for Dragon Isles than a brand new continent, and that's quite troubling, because we're still going to have about a year of Dragon Isles before 11.0 releases, and I seriously doubt people are going to be hyped to play through another lost continent with dragons and titan constructs.

[Sondrelk]

Another point to think about with the latest leak is that I feel pretty confident that all the new zones, with a few exceptions, are something entirely new in feel. Basic ideas like stone pillars, or individual assets might carry over, but there is usually something new with a zone that has never been seen in that way before. Even if the difference is subtle.

No previous zone could be confused for Waking Shore. We have not had an open zone like the Ohn'ahran plains since Nagrand. Thaldrazus is far more vertical than any previous zone since probably Storm Peaks.
This is true for previous expansions as well. Zandalar was a dense jungle on the level of Stranglethorn, and Zuldazar had architecture that didn't exist beforehand. Vol'dun had a starkly different colour palette to other deserts in WoW.
Kul Tiras had a unique take on the zones by making them use a colder colour palette as compared to the more tropical ones we usually had in coastal zones.

The only exception I can think of in recent times is Azure Span, and that zone was specifically designed to be a throwback zone.

It is interesting that all the zones shown are reminiscent of existing zones. The winter one being the most different from previous zones, but also the easiest one to make.

[micwini]

There are many similarities and that's a little sus

We've had this in the past. Don't get me wrong. It can be a really good fake like the stormwind harbor with ghosts, but this is one level above even that. I see the similarities, but we've had similar leaks like that before. And if im honest, the images make that text leak more legit than the other way around.

Currently im betting a 75% chance of real 25% of fake.