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

[Myrrh]

Here is the zone previews for Legion;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnjGw9ZL3QQ

Here's the faction zones from WoD:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obT445jFX2E

If you took a still photo from either of those zones, you instantly see differences between the two expansions.

BTW, that first pics just smacks of Azure span 2.0;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U1IAKLpYBY

WoD was also on another planet, so as I pointed out earlier yes it would be reasonable to expect that should look like a different expansion. Two in a row on Azeroth, shockingly they will both look like Azeroth to some degree. Those videos were actually really great examples of how much difference there can be between a simple still image and a number of video shots. Especially Frostfire - if you saw some of those clips alone you might question where the fire comes in!

[rainhard]

I know only a Sith deals in absolutes, but this is fake.

But ask yourselves, does it really feel like a talented WoW level designer put this together? It looks great for what it is, a fake leak from the community. But there's so little thought given to the layout of the zones in these screenshots. Trees and flowers from all sorts of biomes are mixed wildly, the skyboxes look like someone copypasted Gorgrond (Blizzard puts a lot of love into their sky boxes these days). That forest looks like it has a dense canopy right above the road, which isn't something Blizzard likes doing given how the camera follows the player from that POV.

If it ends up real this will be so insulting to everyone at blizzard lool.

[Teriz]

As for your dragon thing.. myea, if it's Avaloren (and that's a strong if. I am not sold on those screenshots being real just yet) it's a place nobody has been, that a green dragon "maybe" travelled to. And now suddenly there have to be dragons and Odyn. That makes absolutely 0 sense.

A green dragon traveling through the storms to reach Avaloren is part of the continent's lore, so of course we're going to encounter green dragons there. We're also going to encounter storm dragons because they're connected to Odyn and tie in with the entire storm nonsense.

So yeah, dragons, titans, anti-titans, and a lost continent all over again. You're seriously excited for that?

[Santandame]

The WotLK feature reveal has an old model for the vrykuls (it looks like a big balding human)

That’s because that was the original plan for the Vrykul. They didn’t just throw in an old model for the sake of it when they knew they were just going to use a different one later on for the actual expansion. They changed their stance on what they wanted Vrykul to be and look like. They were originally supposed to be vampiric too but this changed in development also.

[ercarp]

I have a feeling we'll get another image leak later today. Possibly the logo.

[Lazarel]

I have a feeling we'll get another image leak later today. Possibly the logo.

even though I am dissapopinted about the screenshots reveal, I'm really excited to see the logo

[Teriz]

WoD was also on another planet, so as I pointed out earlier yes it would be reasonable to expect that should look like a different expansion. Two in a row on Azeroth, shockingly they will both look like Azeroth to some degree. Those videos were actually really great examples of how much difference there can be between a simple still image and a number of video shots. Especially Frostfire - if you saw some of those clips alone you might question where the fire comes in!

The point is, if you take a set of still shots from Draenor, Legion, BFA, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight, they're all going to look very different from each other visually.

This looks a lot like Dragonflight, and that's the problem.

[Raetary]

Also on the 4th picture the golem is walking in the jungle with no path. That's just utterly stupid. Golems are not wild animals. They are put somewhere with purpose, it won't just patrol in a random jungle, especially not in the reveal cinematic.

This is such a random ass take.

If its a titan garden, why would the place not have golems and guardians patroling its wilds?

[Santandame]

I don’t understand why some people in the thread are talking/acting like these screenshots are confirmed as legit screenshots from the upcoming future expansions zones. I understand discussion and theorising but there’s not much of that surrounding that from some folk, just “it looks like it could be real so this is it guys” whilst not considering all the other evidence and details that point towards it being just as fake as it could be real.

[Nightshade711]

Unlike everyone else here, I am pro going to a new island with 4-5 new zones. The problem is that Blizzard has ZERO imagination and uses too many props from older expansions to make things look new and exciting. They just use the same concept and the same looks over and over again instead of using just new ideas to create a truly unique continent.

I agree with this tbh.
Despite it’s glaring story & gameplay issues I did enjoy the look of most of Shadowlands zones individually. It shows to me that the art team CAN shine creating something completely new from scratch.
Though the maw was kinda dull imo.

[Revamp Man]

A green dragon traveling through the storms to reach Avaloren is part of the continent's lore, so of course we're going to encounter green dragons there. We're also going to encounter storm dragons because they're connected to Odyn and tie in with the entire storm nonsense.

So yeah, dragons, titans, anti-titans, and a lost continent all over again. You're seriously excited for that?

Correct me if I'm wrong but it was never stated the green dragon made it to Avaloren just that she traveled

There's also 0 reason to believe that storm dragons are there

[Worldshaper]

If it ends up real this will be so insulting to everyone at blizzard lool.

I'll happily eat my own words if it ends being real, and if the real presentation looks much better than this.

But what we've seen now doesn't scream "new expansion in 2024" to me. It screams "we did the bare minimum with limited resources to put together a somewhat believable image".

It looks like a mishmash and a hodgepodge of old assets with a few tweaks. Is that what you think Blizzard thinks the community wants for WoW's 20th anniversary, and 10th expansion, with Metzen back at the helm?

[Nightshade711]

The point is, if you take a set of still shots from Draenor, Legion, BFA, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight, they're all going to look very different from each other visually.

This looks a lot like Dragonflight, and that's the problem.

Also, I don’t get why you think it “looks a lot like Dragonflight”. I don’t really get “dragonflight zone” vibes from the images.

[ImTheMizAwesome]

This looks a lot like Dragonflight, and that's the problem.

Yeah first impression like i mentioned in my other post - If someone presented this to me as 10.3 bigger major patch for DF i wouldn't think that person is lying to me at all.

There's a lot to the expansion(no matter if leak is real or not) when it comes to features we won't know until reveal, but as for first impression of zone pictures, the weird feeling of vibe being very similar to DF is there, especially first zone showed.

[Myrrh]

If we take a step back, not even look at the images, doesn't the entire concept of "tall dwarves" just seem completely silly?

Introducing the tall dwarves' mortal enemies: the short giants. Riveting stuff.

This is such a random ass take.

If its a titan garden, why would the place not have golems and guardians patroling its wilds?

Yeah - Ungoro is a perfect example of your very point. Titan garden, random golems wandering around off road, woah.

[pacotaco]

I think your eyes are being tricked by the angle and the straight banner from the "mobile ready" thing.

I do think that leak is like 90%+ fake. Because as already mentioned, every expansion gets its own freshly designed website, and this one is just DF's site but with new visual bits and bombs. diamonds instead of circles, double arrows instead of triangles inside circles, frames with overlayed corner elements instead of inlaid ones.

It's background also really painfully just an AI regurgitation of the Dragon Isles main concept art. Someone brought up that it has britishism like "defence" and there are some basic design flaws like readability of the text and the lack of vignette-ing or otherwise downplaying the backgrounds. Also I don't know why two of the four pictures for what is clearly supposed to be zone explanations are instead pictures where you can't see the zone because they're such heavy close-ups on the people who live there.

But I don't think that angles are one of the issues.

Yeah, the banner is creating an optical illusion, giving the feeling of some parts being tilted.

[NikolaiShade]

I have a feeling we'll get another image leak later today. Possibly the logo.

Is it a feeling or a "feeling"?

[Teriz]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it was never stated the green dragon made it to Avaloren just that she traveled

There's also 0 reason to believe that storm dragons are there

It's pretty obvious that the green dragon made it. That's the point of such stories.

Also the reason to believe Storm dragons are involved is because they're connected with Odyn, and Odyn is connected to the lore of Avaloren.

[Nightshade711]

Teriz is right, others feel that way too. If these zones turn out to be real (most probably), it'll be the most underwhelming new expansion hype attempt from Blizzard in my eyes. They usually put the most spectacular elements in their promos to generate hype. If that's the most spectacular... well, that's sad. I'm happy you like it tho, good for you.

I disagree on the whole “oh no if these 4 still images are real the expansion will be underwhelming!” Sentiment on this thread from some posters.

Zones don’t make an expansion, gameplay/story typically does. SL was pretty decently hyped for example, but then the reveal came out and it was so empty. I remember sitting there being like “that’s it?”

Hell, the Dracthyr were real to some poster’s disappointment but it wasn’t the end of the world and DF was actually still pretty well received.

[ercarp]

I don’t understand why some people in the thread are talking/acting like these screenshots are confirmed as legit screenshots from the upcoming future expansions zones. I understand discussion and theorising but there’s not much of that surrounding that from some folk, just “it looks like it could be real so this is it guys” whilst not considering all the other evidence and details that point towards it being just as fake as it could be real.

Occam's razor. Considering everything we know, it's far more likely that these are real screenshots rather than elaborate fakes. I think people trying to find small details wrong with the images are in denial. People (and I'm including myself in that) did the exact same thing with the Bolvar leak and the Dracthyr screenshots, and look how wrong we were.

It's also worth mentioning that we have never had a leak this elaborate be proven fake. The only one that comes somewhat close is the leaked "cutscene" of Stormwind Harbor with the ghost ships, but even that's nowhere near this level.