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

[ercarp]

I still think the zones shown in the leaked screenshots look like they would be really fun to quest in. Especially the red Thousand Needles/Durotar esque area.

[milkmustache]

I'm going to continue to be stubborn and call this an insanely good fake. I think these were both made by the same person/people. The webpage looks incredible, but there are some giveaways to me that I would consider it to not be real; certain spacing issues that don't adhere to both Blizzard's tendencies and modern web design. I think this is the fake of all fakes, and they've absolutely killed it.

Somewhere deep in my gut I know I'm wrong and I'm looking at 11.0, but I feel the need to argue against.

Here's the full webpage. The text itself is not totally convincing as it's pretty vague, but I won't use that as a point against it. The margins on the sides of the page are far too thin, most web designs get as center justified as possible to allow easy transition to mobile reading. If there were just arrows, I'd think otherwise, but the inclusion of "Khaz Algar" and "The Everward" are giving me doubt. Even more to this, it takes up the entire screen, which is also something that Blizzard doesn't do in their web design. Looking at the Dragonflight page, you see that it is more sectioned off taking up more of half the length of the page rather than full.

The description of Khaz Algar also seems confused on whether it's describing a city, a zone or a culture.

Again, I'm sure most of this is ridiculous copium on my part, but I still can't shake the feeling this is an incredible fake.

[Ashapls]

World revamp truthers aside, I'm a bit confused about what exactly people want from a new expansion zone wise. Whenever an extremely out of the box zone comes along, I always see people talk about how it doesn't FEEL like warcraft or it doesn't FEEL like azeroth. The leaked screenshots definitely feel terrestrial, and very plausible/in-line with azeroths aesthetic, but most people feel it's boring, disappointing, bland, phoned it. What new biomes could blizzard create that are both fresh and azerothy at this point that haven't been done? I guess I'm just trying to understand, respectfully lol

I personally want a “smaller” world. We’re at what, 700 obtainable mounts? Hundred playable zones? How many dungeons, raids etc. Everytime that number grows the previous things lose a bit of meaning. I think most players agree that When they incorporate the old content i a quests etc it feels great.

They’re in the mindset that they must create the new zones etc to sell their expac and that’s the reality. I just would rather have a more meaningful world for my MMO.

[KurtMash]

World revamp truthers aside, I'm a bit confused about what exactly people want from a new expansion zone wise. Whenever an extremely out of the box zone comes along, I always see people talk about how it doesn't FEEL like warcraft or it doesn't FEEL like azeroth. The leaked screenshots definitely feel terrestrial, and very plausible/in-line with azeroths aesthetic, but most people feel it's boring, disappointing, bland, phoned it. What new biomes could blizzard create that are both fresh and azerothy at this point that haven't been done? I guess I'm just trying to understand, respectfully lol

I want the new continent to feel, for the lack of a better word, believable. As messed up the geography and climates of Azeroth are, the old continents (EK, Kalimdor, Northrend, Pandaria, even Kul Tiras and Zandalar) all felt cohesive. I'm not a big fan of putting a few random zones together, with no broader aesthetic. Broken Isles were not perfect, but passable. Dragon Isles however are a hodgepodge of biomes that make no sense. We have a lush, almost jungle-like canyons, next to plains, next to tundra and icebergs, and a zone with floating islands to top it all off. Floating islands were cool in Nagrand, but there was a reason why they would be floating in Nagrand. What's the reason here? Because dragons?

I would like Avaloren to be inspired by Iceland/Faroe Islands/Scotland/England/Ireland. There should be enough diversity here to make a diverse, yet cohesive continet.

[Marlamin]

That's interesting. If they made that many new assets for Dragonflight, maybe they were always planning to reuse them going forward.

Good to get your take on this, and sorry for tagging you like a billion times.

I will say the reuse vs new asset ratio seems off compared to Dragonflight, but at the same time reusing Shadowlands assets in DF or BfA assets in SL largely wouldn't work due to thematical differences, so this might just the first time we pick up on it, if the leak is real.

[Hitei]

The amount of people who think re-used asset = fake really goes to show they just have absolutely zero clue how game development works. Re-use of assets is very normal for a game development cycle. Do you expect 10000 new tree models and textures for them too any time there is a new continent? Whoever brings up "re-used" assets as an excuse that something is fake is not to be taken seriously.

You're missing the forest for the trees. Every expansion reuses existing assets, rigs, etc. Yes, they reuse tree models... But every single thing in this, including the major set pieces seems to be reused or modified assets. No expansion has ever reused assets this heavily and in such a dense concentration.

Sure. They throw old trees in now and then. They also make new trees for basically every zone, because foliage is a big part of making zones feel new, so when you make a canyon-y, rocky red zone similar to Waking Shores, you don't put in Waking Shores trees, because that makes it feel like just Waking Shores. You throw in new, visually striking trees so that it feels like a similar but new zone.

It's very likely that living world assets (the birds and butterflies) will show up in 11.0 zones. It's likely that some of them will be reused. But what are the chances that you take four random screenshots from a trailer or press kit and two of them just so happen to have slightly modified existing living world assets in the exact same front left, easy to see position?

Sure. They reuse or upscale assets. But what are the chances Blizzard sits down to make two huge set pieces in a zone, like giant highly visible statues carved out of a mountain, and they make one an upscaled existing asset, and the other just a dwarf player model in an existing animation? Imagine getting a first look at Vol'dun, and the pyramid was just higher poly vanilla ZF pyramid and in the background, instead of a new, striking, visually distinct snake statue, they just had a stone colored old cobra model.

What are the chances you take four screenshots of different zones (or areas), and of the almost dozen creature, critter, etc. models in the screenshots, none are actually properly new, just mashed together existing assets? And you have basically no new aesthetics? And the screenshots "just so happen" to conveniently have a reference to recent official twitter pictures? And the same extremely basic skybox when the art team has been going 150% on skyboxes lately?

Individually none of these are a huge problem, but together? Go rewatch the dragonflight/shadowlands/etc trailers and see how immediately distinct the zones are. The chances of the art team suddenly phoning it in after 20 years isn't 0, but it's really, really low.

[Sondrelk]

I still think the zones shown in the leaked screenshots look like they would be really fun to quest in. Especially the red Thousand Needles/Durotar esque area.

The raid zone definitely seem interesting enough. Though the rest don't give me anything to go by. One is just temperate forest, one is just snow and rocks, and the last one is just Zuldazar with Titan pillars.

The fact that none of the pictures really show iconic landmarks or interesting architecture leads me to believe it's an elaborate fake.

[Teriz]

Not every source, as in-game we’ve seen the entrance to Undermine on Kezan. And other goblin starting zone stuff.

How does that stop Undermine from being a different place than Kezan?

Still haven’t even seen the whole statue, only one side of it that’s mostly obstructed.

Are we talking about the same eagle statue? It looks exactly like the statue in the EK except with smoother textures.

Not really. As mentioned before, the first screenshot you mentioned doesn’t look really much like Azure Span. I just don’t see any VALID comparisons. Unless “oh no both zones have orange rocks!!” Means they’re both waking shore.

Except Azure span also has the same rocks and mist effects as that picture. The only difference is the addition of bright flowers on the ground;

At most it reminds me of Kul Tiras in a way but I can’t put my finger on it.

Nope, looks like a spruced up Azure span.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Not just new assets being exciting, but potential iconic landmarks.
Doesn't even habe to be the main focus. Zones in WoW are usually so tightly contained that you would struggle to take pictures without anything in them.

Basically. There's *nothing* entirely new. You could have made all of these with existing assets, and that's what seems off.

IMO legit press release screenshots would *very likely* focus in something actually new and exciting (even if these scenes on themselves could entirely exist)

[Sondrelk]

You're missing the forest for the trees. Every expansion reuses existing assets, rigs, etc. Yes, they reuse tree models... But every single thing in this, including the major set pieces seems to be reused or modified assets. No expansion has ever reused assets this heavily and in such a dense concentration.

Sure. They throw old trees in now and then. They also make new trees for basically every zone, because foliage is a big part of making zones feel new, so when you make a canyon-y, rocky red zone similar to Waking Shores, you don't put in Waking Shores trees, because that makes it feel like just Waking Shores. You throw in new, visually striking trees so that it feels like a similar but new zone.

It's very likely that living world assets (the birds and butterflies) will show up in 11.0 zones. It's likely that some of them will be reused. But what are the chances that you take four random screenshots from a trailer or press kit and two of them just so happen to have slightly modified existing living world assets in the exact same front left, easy to see position?

Sure. They reuse or upscale assets. But what are the chances Blizzard sits down to make two huge set pieces in a zone, like giant highly visible statues carved out of a mountain, and they make one an upscaled existing asset, and the other just a dwarf player model in an existing animation? Imagine getting a first look at Vol'dun, and the pyramid was just higher poly vanilla ZF pyramid and in the background, instead of a new, striking, visually distinct snake statue, they just had a stone colored old cobra model.

What are the chances you take four screenshots of different zones (or areas), and of the almost dozen creature, critter, etc. models in the screenshots, none are actually properly new, just mashed together existing assets? And you have basically no new aesthetics? And the screenshots "just so happen" to conveniently have a reference to recent official twitter pictures? And the same extremely basic skybox when the art team has been going 150% on skyboxes lately?

Individually none of these are a huge problem, but together? Go rewatch the dragonflight/shadowlands/etc trailers and see how immediately distinct the zones are. The chances of the art team suddenly phoning it in after 20 years isn't 0, but it's really, really low.

The leak is impressive because it's a bunch of small things thrown together in a way that makes it seem believable.
The first picture and the one with the dwarf in the snowy area especially. They seem more thrown in to make the other two pictures more impressive, and for the whole to stand up better to scrutiny.

[Dismayxz]

The raid zone definitely seem interesting enough. Though the rest don't give me anything to go by. One is just temperate forest, one is just snow and rocks, and the last one is just Zuldazar with Titan pillars.

The fact that none of the pictures really show iconic landmarks or interesting architecture leads me to believe it's an elaborate fake.

Again though, they don't necessarily have to show big landmarks, if that's just the images that were available to leak to whoever leaked them. People are going on about how many reused assets there are, but most of those screenshots, while they are evocative of previous areas, do in fact use plenty of "original" assets. Just because the trees look similar in some cases, doesn't mean shit when the shapes are completely different. There are still more assets that haven't been made out as copy-pastes, than there are assets we could, so far, call out as such.

[Ilujee]

What if all these Avaloren leaks are a Blizzard deal made by intention in order to misguide us from the real ones. OR! to find potential leakers within the crew.

[Gloriandus]

Here's the full webpage.

Body text font is wrong; always the giveaway.

[Ashapls]

I believe these leaks to be genuine. However, I will remind everyone that the art community of WoW is extremely talented.

There’s that artist on reddit who was churning out class cosmetic glyph ideas for months.

The artist who was developing racial class sets for every race.

Tomkek who impressively HD updates early in game assets.

It would be pretty amazing, legendary even, if a group of artists like these got together this summer and made a super convincing fake together.

I’m excited either way.

[Draedarr]

I believe these leaks to be genuine. However, I will remind everyone that the art community of WoW is extremely talented.

There’s that artist on reddit who was churning out class cosmetic glyph ideas for months.

The artist who was developing racial class sets for every race.

Tomkek who impressively HD updates early in game assets.

It would be pretty amazing, legendary even, if a group of artists like these got together this summer and made a super convincing fake together.

I’m excited either way.

What i was thinking earlier aswell, could be one or more artists toying and having fun with concepts (also to troll)

[Tyruin]

Not sure if been mentioned yet but doesnt the light pillar in the 4th photo look similar to the pillars from the blizzcon asset tease?

Specifically the right one on the bottom image

[Raetary]

Not sure if been mentioned yet but doesnt the light pillar in the 4th photo look similar to the pillars from the blizzcon asset tease?

For the 50 billionth time, that's the corridor of time decor, themed after the Temporal Conflux in Thaldraszus.

[flan1337]

Not sure if been mentioned yet but doesnt the light pillar in the 4th photo look similar to the pillars from the blizzcon asset tease?

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/Egjmyrs.jpg[/]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/aa6LZWv.jpg[]

Yup someone pointed it out and I find it interesting because we have the Blizzcon map - we know it’s going to be for the corridor of time but maybe it’s actually an area in avalorn? And we will see what happened in avalorn?

[vintage79]

Not sure if been mentioned yet but doesnt the light pillar in the 4th photo look similar to the pillars from the blizzcon asset tease?

Specifically the right one on the bottom image

yea kinda same

[flan1337]

For the 50 billionth time, that's the corridor of time decor, themed after the Temporal Conflux in Thaldraszus.

Correct but why would those same pillars appear in avalorn? These pillars look EXACTLY like the Blizzcon ones. Which we know is themed off temporal conflux - but an exact copy doesn’t exist in temporal conflux. This avalorn pillar looks like an exact copy but over grown and green.

Edit: ignore me - I am wrong they are literally copy pasted from in game haha