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

[22mage22]

people asking about "megazones". they are just regular zones. some combined with each other to form areas like lordaeron.

[Izalla]

Sorry to confuse you, by sun cat mount, I meant the Sunwarmed Furline, not Ash'adar, Harbinger of Dawn.

Oooh I gotcha. Yeah I don't think that has been used. Too many sun cats!

[Sondrelk]

Care to elaborate on what you mean by mega zones?

I mean, Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have a set number of zones no matter how we look at it. They can't just toss Desolace out the window (even if they may want to), so what would a mega zone entail? Just make some of the current zones be subsections of other zones? Because that does not sound like less work, it sounds like you'd just be changing how you categorize the zones

Its a semantic argument, but also one with ramifications for the actual zones.

Take for instance the Human starting zones, like Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood.
If they are all individual zones then you have an implicit drive to make them all have a self contained story with a beginning middle and end, not to mention side quests and what not.
With megazones you can instead be less strict about that stuff. You can have one big storyline that goes across all the zones, and sparse side quests to the tube of maybe one per area.

So yes, a minor improvement over having all the individual zones we have currently. Both for questing, and for endgame since you don't strictly have to make ALL current zones relevant.

[Rathwell]

I was dead sure the dracthyr riddle stuff was nonsense and the character creation picture looked ridiculous, but I wasn't willing to post the true extent of my disbelief in the thread just in case I was made a fool when they somehow were proven correct. Even then I'm pretty sure I made it clear I didn't trust Scaleface and didn't take the picture seriously. I was sooo sure it was someone having a laugh stringing the thread along for shits and giggles hahah.

I'm a little embarrassed by this one,

You mean this?

Lifehack:

If you just take one of Blizzard's announcement plates and remove their art, you can use the background to find your own totally true and 100% legit leaks!

[Izalla]

I do still wonder where the megazones idea came from as a bunch of conflicting leaks had them. The only benefit is having easier multizone quests, which only benefits people with flying and would wreck the world for new players.

Straight scaling even with "ai" is going to feel awful and arbitrary. And requires the entire continent to be rebuilt with twice the content at once. When they have only just reactivated scarlet monastery and routed dragon riding it seems unlikely anything is shifting.

We've been suggesting them for years, probably since the world revamp idea really picked up speed as more and more old assets and models got updated. It was born out of the fact that modern zones are much larger than the original zones, and when Blizz makes a continent like Dragon Isles with only 4 zones that rivals the size of Northrend, well, a world revamp where all the tiny zones are kept as tiny zones instead of being turned into modern sized zones with subzones in them, seems unlikely. Especially with how good they are at proper natural zone barriers now. The vanilla zone barriers are just huge ugly globs of "mountain" that don't really make sense and don't look good. If they made mega zones, they can change a lot of those artifical barriers that need not exist between a lot of the zones.

[Sondrelk]

I do still wonder where the megazones idea came from as a bunch of conflicting leaks had them. The only benefit is having easier multizone quests, which only benefits people with flying and would wreck the world for new players.

Straight scaling even with "ai" is going to feel awful and arbitrary. And requires the entire continent to be rebuilt with twice the content at once. When they have only just reactivated scarlet monastery and routed dragon riding it seems unlikely anything is shifting.

I know that it is an idea I have championed for years now as a solution to there being too many individual zones to make equally relevant, alongside Vanilla zone design being incongruous with current movement tech.
Believe I even wrote some expansion ideas with it somewhere before SL launched.

It's not a complicated idea though, so people might have just came up with it themselves.

[Wangming]

I do still wonder where the megazones idea came from as a bunch of conflicting leaks had them. The only benefit is having easier multizone quests, which only benefits people with flying and would wreck the world for new players.

Straight scaling even with "ai" is going to feel awful and arbitrary. And requires the entire continent to be rebuilt with twice the content at once. When they have only just reactivated scarlet monastery and routed dragon riding it seems unlikely anything is shifting.

Well ya know. Old Zones weren't really designed with flying in mind. It was enabled in Cataclysm, yes. But still some of them are quite small. For example I don't think Tirisfal and Lordaeron add up to a single DF zone.

[Rathwell]

people asking about "megazones". they are just regular zones. some combined with each other to form areas like lordaeron.

I can buy that, I just didn't see how that'd be less work for Blizzard to accomplish, but I can see an argument for it being more efficient quest design-wise. All the same though, you'd still be modeling a full continent's worth of zones

[Lahis]

I think it's cheaper.

If you currently are on 6 month or shorter sub plan, buying the 12 month sub now will add 12 months to your remaining game time and the next billing date will be when that is over.

- - - Updated - - -

Do we have anyhting if we already have the 1 year sub up ?

You should automatically get all the stuff from it.

[Kiria]

Ahh so you have two lucky daughters. Even better. I hope to have at least one as well, because when my little sister was born she really brought a lot of joy to our family. Thing is girls are very rare in my father's family. ANd I mean, only one in three generations. my older sister didn't make it. My younger..is actually a half sister. So the odds of me having a daughter are quite low.

You could always adopt, plenty of children looking for loving homes out there.

[Izalla]

I can buy that, I just didn't see how that'd be less work for Blizzard to accomplish, but I can see an argument for it being more efficient quest design-wise. All the same though, you'd still be modeling a full continent's worth of zones

The less work part comes from them not having to come up with as many individual little storylines for each little zone, and they can instead have longer, connected stories for mega zones that are on par with modern zone stories. Think of the Defias story from vanilla: it was spread across a bunch of zones that all had a connection to the "human storyline". Take that concept and apply it to all the new megazones.

It's also less daunting to look at than a map of 40 zones as a new player I suppose. Though part of my excitement when I started playing was seeing how many places I had yet to uncover and the sheer amount of content ahead or me, but I might not be a good example of the average new player these days hahah.

[PotHockets]

I can buy that, I just didn't see how that'd be less work for Blizzard to accomplish, but I can see an argument for it being more efficient quest design-wise. All the same though, you'd still be modeling a full continent's worth of zones

Yes but again much, much larger team now and it just helps with workflow

[Rathwell]

We've been suggesting them for years, probably since the world revamp idea really picked up speed as more and more old assets and models got updated. It was born out of the fact that modern zones are much larger than the original zones, and when Blizz makes a continent like Dragon Isles with only 4 zones that rivals the size of Northrend, well, a world revamp where all the tiny zones are kept as tiny zones instead of being turned into modern sized zones with subzones in them, seems unlikely. Especially with how good they are at proper natural zone barriers now. The vanilla zone barriers are just huge ugly globs of "mountain" that don't really make sense and don't look good. If they made mega zones, they can change a lot of those artifical barriers that need not exist between a lot of the zones.

One immediate thought on megazones though - what would you call them? As someone mentioned earlier, you could bunch up a few of the ones up north and call it Lordaeron, and Duskwood+Elwynn+Westfall+Redridge could be The Kingdom of Stormwind, but for the rest?

Ashenvale, Hyjal, Darkshore and Moonglade could work as an elven bundle, but what would you call it? And there are big chunks of the map where it's hard to find a coherent cluster. Stranglethorn for instance doesn't pair well with any of the zones it borders

[Sondrelk]

I can buy that, I just didn't see how that'd be less work for Blizzard to accomplish, but I can see an argument for it being more efficient quest design-wise. All the same though, you'd still be modeling a full continent's worth of zones

It's primarily about making it easier to wrap your head around it.
You could however try to imagine how it would look the opposite way around, and make the Dragon Isles have 10+ zones, because it's absolutely possible considering the size of old zones.
Waking Shore could be divided up into the area you first get to near the shore, the lava part with Djaradin, and the more mountainous area bordering Ohn'ahran plains.
Azure Span could be divided up into the icy area, the boreal forest, and the decayed area surrounding Brackenhide.

You can see how amalgamating all these areas into one single zone makes it easier to make them work as zones.

[Woke it Up]

The less work part comes from them not having to come up with as many individual little storylines for each little zone, and they can instead have longer, connected stories for mega zones that are on par with modern zone stories. Think of the Defias story from vanilla: it was spread across a bunch of zones that all had a connection to the "human storyline". Take that concept and apply it to all the new megazones.

It's also less daunting to look at than a map of 40 zones as a new player I suppose. Though part of my excitement when I started playing was seeing how many places I had yet to uncover and the sheer amount of content ahead or me, but I might not be a good example of the average new player these days hahah.

So make a new problem and solve it the way they solved it twenty years ago?

I think that's the solution though right? Just have good multizone questlines for players that have flying. Probably can expand some zones into some of the dead space. The blue dragon questline had no issues sending you to every corner of the world.

[PotHockets]

One immediate thought on megazones though - what would you call them? As someone mentioned earlier, you could bunch up a few of the ones up north and call it Lordaeron, and Duskwood+Elwynn+Westfall+Redridge could be The Kingdom of Stormwind, but for the rest?

Ashenvale, Hyjal, Darkshore and Moonglade could work as an elven bundle, but what would you call it? And there are big chunks of the map where it's hard to find a coherent clusters. Stranglethorn for instance doesn't pair well with any of the zones it borders

Lordaeron, Quel'Thalas, Khaz Modan, Stormwind is technically the name of that entire region iirc but probably Kindom of Stormwind sounds better like you said.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Two playable troll races on the horde say otherwise.

Lol no it doesn’t.

unless you think green and brown/grey orcs are a different race then each other, same with fat and thin humans, forged and not goats, black and none dwarfs, and gnomes with robotic arms/legs.

Human necromancers didn't purposely spread the plague to the people of Stratholme via grain?

spreading plague and spreading eat able undead to stay healthy aren’t the same thing, it’s literally the opposite actually.

Except it's already been conceived.

as we’re all the other city’s, they weren’t thought up only in wow.

Feel free to link to Blizzard dev notes stating that Shadowforge, Zul'Aman, or Dire Maul ever being conceived as neutral, non-hostile cities that adventurers could go to.

you must be aware that “neutral” and “none hostile” aren’t apart of the quote you put below right?

Any way see WC3 where Anima trolls are literally in the horde, and classic wow where when the trolls charge they shout “For Zul’Jin”.

The WotR trilogy.

And that all the way back in class the dark irons were suppose to come together with the other clans due to Moria falling in love and us then going there for brew fest.

As stated before;

which isn’t at all relevant to all the dwarf hints for the next expan, and there are no undermine hints.

[PotHockets]

So make a new problem and solve it the way they solved it twenty years ago?

I think that's the solution though right? Just have good multizone questlines for players that have flying. Probably can expand some zones into some of the dead space. The blue dragon questline had no issues sending you to every corner of the world.

Ideally in a revamp expansion we would get the world redone in such a way that the leveling experience would be evergreen and not tied to the current expansion so hard like Cata did. Then you layer on top of those zones a 70-80 story and end game related stuff. Then have one or two max level zones similar to Suramar that has an end game only story.

[Lahis]

So fyrakk was the anger mentioned in the Naga book
Also if Vyranoth doesn't go full traitor or sacrifice herself then the writers might actually surprise people

She is already confirmed to get blessing from Amidrassil alongside the Aspects. She'll basically bemoces the 6th Aspect representign the elemental dragons and lesser misfit flights.

[Nightshade711]

I never said "officially". I'm saying that it was always rumored to be exactly that from the userbase. Lo' and behold they were right. Not to mention that players have requested us going to the Dragon Isles for years now.

Playerbase speculation & rumors are thankfully not canon.

And still a long-running location in the lore.

Still incorrect. There’s no reference to really anything in SL except the name “shadowlands”. Everything was merely retroactive if anything.

Uh Pandaria was made canon as soon as we got Chen's quest in vanilla. Further, Pandaria and Pandaren were two of the most requested inclusions in early WoW.

As I said, only the name “Pandaria” existed, there was never any REAL lore to it. Therefore it’s not a “major lore location”

It’s like saying Balor is a “major lore location” as a human kingdom bc it was name dropped & used in WC1/2(?) and popped up on the vanilla map… but it’s not because it hasn’t ever popped up anywhere in-game even in references nor has it had any REAL significant lore to it.