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

[GhostPanini]

Did something happen in the last 8 hours?

I know about the 4 zone pics.

No not really. Just debating over the 4 zones

[Draedarr]

Been in / out of this thread. Cliffs on Cult of Revamp? Just meaning old world revamp? What evidence we got? or just hype (which is dank too)

There have been lots of new models and assets in the last years that are not used anywhere in game til this day.

[Teriz]

@Teriz today must feel like the end of the world for you?

Why would you think that?

[Fahrad Wagner]

@Arafal should we update the train?

[Izalla]

Can I just say if the website leak is real, I am severely disappointed in Blizz for how bad an uninspired this description is:

New Continent: Avaloren

The distant lands of Avaloren lay beyond the western horizon of Azeroth's storming seas. Isolated for millennia, those that call these enchanted kingdoms home have relied upon the living world beneath them, bound to sacred oaths and divided by old hatreds.

'Cause like... literally every population living upon a land relies on that... living world. It feels like it was written by a person who has heard the buzz around the living world concept we obsessed over before Dragonflight but who never got the memo that this just applied to the birds and butterflies thing. I can't think of a more boring description of a people than "they rely on the land the live on."

[Ersula]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/avalore...335727?webhook Well WoWhead doing a news about it just confirm this leak is real.

The biggest sus detail for me is the menu saying "Game Editions" when by all accounts that should just be the "Buy" or "Buy Now" tab.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Can I just say if the website leak is real, I am severely disappointed in Blizz for how bad an uninspired this description is:

New Continent: Avaloren

The distant lands of Avaloren lay beyond the western horizon of Azeroth's storming seas. Isolated for millennia, those that call these enchanted kingdoms home have relied upon the living world beneath them, bound to sacred oaths and divided by old hatreds.

'Cause like... literally every population living upon a land relies on that... living world. It feels like it was written by a person who has heard the buzz around the living world concept we obsessed over before Dragonflight but who never got the memo that this just applied to the birds and butterflies thing. I can't think of a more boring description of a people than "they rely on the land the live on."

this this this this THANK YOU IZALLA

[Chickat]

nah we're just inhaling the hopium

Okay. Move aside and let me have a big whiff please.

Also @Shadochi im a Swifty now. Eras tour is really doing wonders for expanding her already massive fan base.

[Algarstorms]

So they're showing a feature focus on a non-player race within the block highlighting the new zones within Avaloren? I'm sorry, I don't buy it. Great effort fake that has coincidences with your writeup.

I dont know I didnt make the site, I dont even work at blizzard. they dont like me much

[Shadochi]

@ercarp have you ever before in any of the old leaksheets given anything such a high Credibility Rating?

[Izalla]

They're largely just regurgitating what we've been talking about, nothing new there.

Do we get some of their ad revenue for basically doing their work for them? =P

[ralilioth]

The BlizzCon site is still down?

Hopefully schedule pops up when its back

[Chickat]

Why would you think that?

Because if those pics are real, it almost certainly means no Undermine.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Do we get some of their ad revenue for basically doing their work for them? =P

we should, and it should finance a world revamp

[milkmustache]

The biggest sus detail for me is the menu saying "Game Editions" when by all accounts that should just be the "Buy" or "Buy Now" tab.

I'm on the side of this being a fake, but the Dragonflight website has "Game Editions" as well. Just checked

Can I just say if the website leak is real, I am severely disappointed in Blizz for how bad an uninspired this description is:

New Continent: Avaloren

The distant lands of Avaloren lay beyond the western horizon of Azeroth's storming seas. Isolated for millennia, those that call these enchanted kingdoms home have relied upon the living world beneath them, bound to sacred oaths and divided by old hatreds.

'Cause like... literally every population living upon a land relies on that... living world. It feels like it was written by a person who has heard the buzz around the living world concept we obsessed over before Dragonflight but who never got the memo that this just applied to the birds and butterflies thing. I can't think of a more boring description of a people than "they rely on the land the live on."

I completely agree with you, but there's a high potential for temporary copy made by the web designer just for reference. Again, I'm team #thisisfake, but I really can't believe Blizzard would be that bland, so if real, it's dummy copy.

[taishar68]

You know, if the laptop and pics were fakes created by Blizzard, that would be some god tier trolling. Even the legendary trolls here would have to give them grudging respect.

[Floot]

Part of me is resigned to the Avaloren leak being real... and also resigned to how underwhelming it is, lmao.
Coping trying to hope the new expansion will have much more to offer...

[Chickat]

@ercarp have you ever before in any of the old leaksheets given anything such a high Credibility Rating?

Spelled your name wrong babes. Sorry.

[Rathwell]

Can I just say if the website leak is real, I am severely disappointed in Blizz for how bad an uninspired this description is:

New Continent: Avaloren

The distant lands of Avaloren lay beyond the western horizon of Azeroth's storming seas. Isolated for millennia, those that call these enchanted kingdoms home have relied upon the living world beneath them, bound to sacred oaths and divided by old hatreds.

'Cause like... literally every population living upon a land relies on that... living world. It feels like it was written by a person who has heard the buzz around the living world concept we obsessed over before Dragonflight but who never got the memo that this just applied to the birds and butterflies thing. I can't think of a more boring description of a people than "they rely on the land the live on."

Perhaps the website filler text writer was paid by the word. Word quota. Just gotta sound like you're saying something

[Hitei]

-snip-

Basically the general problem I have with the leak background (LBG) is that it copies every part of the concept art background (CABG) but because it's (presumably) AI derived, it doesn't properly understand the motivating structure behind why any given thing looks the way it does.

Extremely image heavy explanation below:

Spoiler: 

So for example, in the CABG, you have areas of green:



Notice how these form logical planes. You have a plateau and the plateau has stuff growing on it, and then it drops off into cliffs, and there's less stuff on those vertical faces, so they are not green, or green streaked. This mirrors actual terrain.

The AI doesn't understand that concept though, it's just replicating visual data, so it sees "jagged areas of green" and it makes jagged areas of green:



These don't form planes, because the AI isn't thinking in terms of 3D terrain structure, so you end up with just sort of zigzag bits of green that look like they are growing sideways on the mountain.

Similarly, in the CABG you have water:



The water flows naturally down the 3D terrain in a logical matter. It has a source (the glacial/snow melt at the top), it flows down. Lower down you have additional small sources that also join with the big rivers and flow down. The water forms realistic, smooth rivulets, wnohere is the flow confused, it's easy to read exactly where the water is moving.

In the LBG:



You have confusion. The water doesn't follow obvious logic. Rivers just sort of veer off and dead end, you have rivers that seem to flow sideways and back up. There's no obvious source for the water, because higher up you just have rocky mountains with no apparent snowmelt. Just like the jagged green bits above, the AI sees "blue zigzags" and tries to imitate those blue zigzags, it doesn't think through the 3D logic of water flowing.

You can also see this in the mountain structures:



I hope this communicates what is happening here well, but in the CABG, you have rock arches. These arches are weighted logically. The top parts are thin, and supported by the mountain below. Small bridges between large pillars and peaks.



Compare that with the mountain structures here in the LBG:



Instead of a bridge between two solid foundations, you have basically a mountain peak sitting on top of a bridge, or like a hole put through the middle of a peak. The left bit leans precariously sidewise, so the entire structure feels unbalanced with the weight high instead of low, and it comes across like less realistic terrain.

Also note that the CABG has actual details.



Individual trees, individual stalactites, unique bits of hilltop. The LBG just has confused colors. It's like blocking in the general shapes, but never actually taking the time to go in and draw the individual terrain features that make a thing feel detailed. It comes across more like a bunch of areas of maybe-jungle-maybe-lichen-vague-green rather than fields and pine forests and lone trees.

Nothing is ever definite, I could very well be wildly wrong, but as someone who sometimes does art stuff in their free time, this feels like an AI reproduction of the CABG. It's too exact to the color palette, there's too many of the exact same terrain features, but there's none of the extreme skill and knowledge displayed by the CABG artist. It's like someone much worse sort of attempted to copy what they were seeing without understanding anything behind the picture, which is frequently what AI looks like. Pretty, but failing to grasp the deeper mechanical logic of the picture.