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

[vintage79]

is this rly gona happen

also it remainds me of this un'goro (and other zones) titan balconies

[Northelim]

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.

I respectfully disagree. Yes I am well aware that much of the zones in previous trailers are quite distinct. Also, if you look at the image here all of the zones here have quite a good contrast between each other. I am afraid what is happening here is just a ton of copium or disbelief, so people are looking ways to justify that it is fake.

I do not believe the images are fake. However, the laptop leak with the website is fake because it uses a well known background image for the back of it. I get what you are saying here, but the issue is that unless we see the trailer and footage in motion with everything moving its a lot easier to point things out. If this was actual leaked footage, I doubt most people would notice such re-use of assets. It also doesn't help the resolution of these shots are quite abysmal by today's standards, so everything looks like doo doo and its hard to make stuff out.

[Pinksocking]

so any new leaks real or nah

[KurtMash]

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?

Ockham's razor says no.

[Yarathir]

Argus was a whole new planet

Yes, but my point is that the term continent is saved for expansion stuff.

And Argus was a planet in concept, but 3 zones in practice.

[Marlamin]

I love the whole timezone/cycle thing the discussion goes through where people bring up stuff that's already been discussed into the ground, but because it's a bunch of pages ago and we've moved on it gets brought up again.

[Pinksocking]

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.

that fake nephew

[KurtMash]

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.

An EXACT copy of the Blizzcon pillars exists on the Dawn of the Infinite loading screen

[micwini]

Real dilemma: Avaloren, another random island no one ever heard of OR Underground expansion, but it would mean Teriz is correct twice within 1 year.

[GhostPanini]

I am so on the fence on this leak. I get that the leaker might not get the best shots for the new zones but they look static and empty. Everything looks reused. Hopefully if this is a true leak that there will be more new things.

[Ferlion]

I respectfully disagree. Yes I am well aware that much of the zones in previous trailers are quite distinct. Also, if you look at the image here all of the zones here have quite a good contrast between each other. I am afraid what is happening here is just a ton of copium or disbelief, so people are looking ways to justify that it is fake.

I do not believe the images are fake. However, the laptop leak with the website is fake because it uses a well known background image for the back of it. I get what you are saying here, but the issue is that unless we see the trailer and footage in motion with everything moving its a lot easier to point things out. If this was actual leaked footage, I doubt most people would notice such re-use of assets. It also doesn't help the resolution of these shots are quite abysmal by today's standards, so everything looks like doo doo and its hard to make stuff out.

If the website is fake, the screenshots are fake. The "Ogre" in the background being the same down to chest markings is too much of a coincidence.

[Makabreska]

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.

Dunno, the main giveaway for me of this being fake is how totally misaligned the screen image is from the laptop keyboard.

[Fahrad Wagner]

OMG 50 pages! What's new folks?!

[PotHockets]

I love the whole timezone/cycle thing the discussion goes through where people bring up stuff that's already been discussed into the ground, but because it's a bunch of pages ago and we've moved on it gets brought up again.

It's super interesting too because of the cultural differences in how X thing is discussed. Like us NA people will go through it and have certain takes or notice certain things and then the EU dorks wake up and they have completely different takes or notice completely different things. It's pretty cool to observe.

[Selorian]

Real dilemma: Avaloren, another random island no one ever heard of OR Underground expansion, but it would mean Teriz is correct twice within 1 year.

it's gonna be an underground expansion on a random island you've never heard of

[PotHockets]

Dunno, the main giveaway for me of this being fake is how totally misaligned the screen image is from the laptop keyboard.

It's just an optical illusion because of the text box

[fcwar]

People are way too quick to claim fake. We've seen it multiple times in the past. When you look through old threads of past expansion drop discussions, whatever the expansion is will more than likely leak out with small detail about 1-3 weeks out. I honestly don't see anything in those 11.0 screens that screams AI to me. Just a bunch of reskins of past assets with new-ish zone types. Very real chance we're looking at 11.0. Very real chance I'm saving a ton of money too

[Taurelius]

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.

Exactly! You can’t please everyone.

[Arbs]

Next Friday will be indeed, interesting.

[Hitei]

OMG 50 pages! What's new folks?!

Endless debate over these supposed screenshots.