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

[Woke it Up]

I think if there is any reason to merge zones its to remove the stupid mounts between each zone. The reality that KD/EK is very flat and just separated by awkward bumps.

It's the disneyland problem, it makes zones feel 'bigger' because you don't know what's behind the mountain, it also obscures things that feel mis-matched. An example of this is where you can see ZG butting up against karazhan. The legion prepatch was there and it just looks and felt janky from above, flattening would make it even worse.

[Rathwell]

Yours looks way better than mine, with almost the exact same borders!

I neglected to write any sort of justification for my zones and went straight for the crayons

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As always night elves get everything lol. Glad these won't be real ever

I mean, Darkshore, Felwoods, Ashenvale, and I'd argue even Feralas are pretty Elf dominanted zones already in the game. All I really gave them was Stonetalon/Desolace, which are still zones with a noticeable elf presence

Don't hate the map maker, hate the game

[GhostFish]

If it's SoA, what about Shores of Avaloren?

[flan1337]

It's the disneyland problem, it makes zones feel 'bigger' because you don't know what's behind the mountain, it also obscures things that feel mis-matched. An example of this is where you can see ZG butting up against karazhan. The legion prepatch was there and it just looks and felt janky from above, flattening would make it even worse.

Totally agree I don’t want them to flatten it. I just think how there is literally an awkward bun scar across the whole of EK that makes 0 sense and now there is so much space above SW to do something creative.

Would love to see how a EK would look like reimagined

[D4NNYB0Y]

I think it's extremely unlikely Avaloren is going to be in the expansion title. I think that's a red herring. Only players who have played Dragonflight know what Avaloren is. Even if someone has never played WoW they can generally deduce Shadowlands is about a land of shadow or Dragonflight involves dragons.

What is an Avaloren without context? I think most people would not get the Avalon reference.

[Bossmonkey]

Skies of Azeroth, flying islands at the center of the storms.

[seainma]

Skies of Azeroth, flying islands at the center of the storms.

Ooh I like this idea. I would love for it to have Skies of Arcadia vibes

[Leowyld]

I think it's extremely unlikely Avaloren is going to be in the expansion title. I think that's a red herring. Only players who have played Dragonflight know what Avaloren is. Even if someone has never played WoW they can generally deduce Shadowlands is about a land of shadow or Dragonflight involves dragons.

What is an Avaloren without context? I think most people would not get the Avalon reference.

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.

[Kiivar86]

We've had an expansion with Pandaria in the title and Draenor too.

People will manage with Avaloren, come on now.

[J Street]

SoA is correct. First play testable zone is a thick jungle with a lot of willow trees. dwarven buildings built into chasms reminiscent of the ones in Grizzly Hills. Spawn on the shore line next to a dwarf/earthern type npc. Massive sea serpent creatures in the sea off the coast behind the spawn point. Lots of blue colorization. Very stormy/lightning filled skybox

Far left side of the zone opens up a bit and has air elementals and troggs in it. There are fissures and cracks in the ground extending out of the jungled area. Zone called Khor'dan Woodlands

Reading through this thread slowly as hell, has anything relevant come from this yet, or just another toss in the bin?

[Bloodwolf]

Pitch:

Fixed the top left corner for you:

[Harbour]

If it's SoA?

Shit, Orcs Again

[Catastrophy349]

With fewer than 9 days to go, people are beginning to lose their minds! We must speculate to restore our sanity!

[PotHockets]

Reading through this thread slowly as hell, has anything relevant come from this yet, or just another toss in the bin?

About as likely as any of other random comment leaks

[Izalla]

It's actually been de-debunked due to two very important details:

1. Diablo IV datamined patch notes on Wowhead showing the name Torajan was renamed to Nahantu, the name used in the leak. This was a huge point of contention for people due to Nahantu not being a zone that existed in the game's lore prior to the leak saying so.

2. A Diablo IV dev saying (a while ago, I presume) that the new class would be something "never seen before" in Diablo. Seems consistent with the idea of whatever "Spiritborn" is.

Admittedly I don't actually know much about Diablo personally but after talking to people more qualified than myself, they seem to think the leak is still worth considering. It's still possible it was made up, but I wouldn't toss it in the bin just yet.

Oh shit this is big. I'm surprised I missed that. Was it not discussed at length in this thread yet?

[Rathwell]

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.

Draenor had come up quite a lot by that point though. I mean, we even had the Draen-ei playable race from there, and we'd played through Outlands, and the whole "We named him Dranosh. It means "heart of Draenor in Orcish" etc. I don't think you really needed to be a lore geek to be aware of Draenor by the time of WoD

Pandaria was probably the only other "Location in expansion title" that came a bit out of left field

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Fixed the top left corner for you:

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/dQBJFDw.png[IMG]

Not going to lie, I legitimately forgot that Teldrassil's sorta gone. Oops.

[Grazrug]

I neglected to write any sort of justification for my zones and went straight for the crayons

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I mean, Darkshore, Felwoods, Ashenvale, and I'd argue even Feralas are pretty Elf dominanted zones already in the game. All I really gave them was Stonetalon/Desolace, which are still zones with a noticeable elf presence

Don't hate the map maker, hate the game

That is more zones then every other race has. It's enough to Limit them to northern Kalimdor.

[Leowyld]

I don't think we heard the word Draenor used that often in Outland - if it was, most people don't read quest text. And I also don't think your average player puts a lot of thought into the etymology of race names.

Edit P.S.: It's a moot point, anyway. If it is Storms of Avaloren or Shadows of Avaloren or Shores of Avaloren, it will be clear Avaloren is a place name. Same with Algar. The context is intuitive.

[Grazrug]

Draenor had come up quite a lot by that point though. I mean, we even had the Draen-ei playable race from there, and we'd played through Outlands, and the whole "We named him Dranosh. It means "heart of Draenor in Orcish" etc. I don't think you really needed to be a lore geek to be aware of Draenor by the time of WoD

Pandaria was probably the only other "Location in expansion title" that came a bit out of left field

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Not going to lie, I legitimately forgot that Teldrassil's sorta gone. Oops.

The Orcs should have given the world it's Name not some alien refugees

[J Street]

About as likely as any of other random comment leaks

Fair enough, just looking for something to latch onto and get invested in, trying to join the hype train with y'all