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

[Teriz]

Just for reference, these are shorts of the more recent announcement trailers. They look nothing like the leaked ones.

Exactly why I doubted those leaked screenshots. They look nothing like actual WoW preview shots for new zones.

[Nyel]

I‘m saying it now and I’ll stand by it: the Avaloren leak is fake and it’s not the next expansion.

[Yarathir]

It's probably fake, but Avaloren itself could still be the main location for an expansion.

[Teriz]

This is tiresome. You have no idea how many zones are going to be announced at Blizzcon. Using 4 screenshots equals 4 zones shows kindergarten level thinking skills. Or you are being dishonest on purpose to "win". When people tire of this Everytime, do you consider that a win?

The point is that the screenshot and website leaks are fake, so who cares? Obviously the next expansion will have more than 4 zones. EVERY WoW expansion has more than 4 zones. A leak telling you that the next expansion is getting 4 zones should be a giant red flag.

[FuujCraft]

The point is that the screenshot and website leaks are fake, so who cares? Obviously the next expansion will have more than 4 zones. EVERY WoW expansion has more than 4 zones. A leak telling you that the next expansion is getting 4 zones should be a giant red flag.

Shadowlands had 4^^

Edit: Oh forgot about the Maw, acrually 5^^ you are right.

[ercarp]

The point is that the screenshot and website leaks are fake, so who cares? Obviously the next expansion will have more than 4 zones. EVERY WoW expansion has more than 4 zones. A leak telling you that the next expansion is getting 4 zones should be a giant red flag.

Not counting Forbidden Reach (which was only used as the Dracthyr starting zone at launch), Dragon Isles had 4 zones, didn't it?

[micwini]

Shadowlands had 4^^

Edit: Oh forgot about the Maw, acrually 5^^ you are right.

Bastion
Maldraxxus
Ardenweald
Revendreth
The Maw

I replied before you edited and now its in the quote too and I look like a dumbo. Well shizzles

[Teriz]

It's probably fake, but Avaloren itself could still be the main location for an expansion.

Eh…. I’m not aware of Blizzard ever making a landmass first mentioned in the previous expansion as the new landmass in the following expansion. Avaloren first mentioned like 8 months ago.

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Not counting Forbidden Reach (which was only used as the Dracthyr starting zone at launch), Dragon Isles had 4 zones, didn't it?

Why would you not count forbidden reach? It’s a zone.

[FuujCraft]

Not counting Forbidden Reach (which was only used as the Dracthyr starting zone at launch), Dragon Isles had 4 zones, didn't it?

Yeah, and the Forbidden Reach was added as patch content after. Before that it was only the evoker starting zone

[caliphax]

Eh…. I’m not aware of Blizzard ever making a landmass first mentioned in the previous expansion as the new landmass in the following expansion. Avaloren first mentioned like 8 months ago.

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Why would you not count forbidden reach? It’s a zone.

Avaloren was first mentioned fairly recently, but something on the other side of Azeroth has been speculated for a long time.

[ercarp]

Why would you not count forbidden reach? It’s a zone.

Unless you played a Dracthyr, it wasn't a zone until they made it accessible again in a later patch. And even as a starting zone it was pathetically short and didn't have much exploration value. I think it took like 20 minutes to do the intro quest and that was it.

I wouldn't count Broken Shore as a launch zone either.

[Yarathir]

Eh…. I’m not aware of Blizzard ever making a landmass first mentioned in the previous expansion as the new landmass in the following expansion. Avaloren first mentioned like 8 months ago.

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Why would you not count forbidden reach? It’s a zone.

That's a fair point. It depends on how important it is to their overall narrative.

But if you want an "Azeroth Overhaul", you probably want something more mundane in terms of the new landmass, rather than something completely out there.

[Nyel]

It's probably fake, but Avaloren itself could still be the main location for an expansion.

I‘m not expecting this to be the case either. It’s WoW‘s 20th birthday. Coming up with a completely unknown place as expansion location feels completely wrong to me. There‘s no nostalgia attached to it and novelty is not what keeps retail afloat at the moment. The 20th birthday should celebrate the roots of Warcraft and not lead us to a (yet) completely unknown and unimportant place for the franchise. That’s at least my take. Out of all expansion settings we ever got, Avaloren feels like the worst of all for an anniversary expansion.

[Samin]

I‘m not expecting this to be the case either. It’s WoW‘s 20th birthday. Coming up with a completely unknown place as expansion location feels completely wrong to me. There‘s no nostalgia attached to it and novelty is not what keeps retail afloat at the moment. The 20th birthday should celebrate the roots of Warcraft and not lead us to a (yet) completely unknown and unimportant place for the franchise. That’s at least my take. Out of all expansion settings we ever got, Avaloren feels like the worst of all for an anniversary expansion.

They have Classic now, they don't need to obsess over nostalgia pandering with retail as much anymore.

[Wangming]

I‘m not expecting this to be the case either. It’s WoW‘s 20th birthday. Coming up with a completely unknown place as expansion location feels completely wrong to me. There‘s no nostalgia attached to it and novelty is not what keeps retail afloat at the moment. The 20th birthday should celebrate the roots of Warcraft and not lead us to a (yet) completely unknown and unimportant place for the franchise. That’s at least my take. Out of all expansion settings we ever got, Avaloren feels like the worst of all for an anniversary expansion.

As stupid as the removal of War mode and Gnolls as an Alliance race is, I'm going to laugh so hard if Origins ends up being the legit leak.

[ercarp]

Avaloren was first mentioned fairly recently, but something on the other side of Azeroth has been speculated for a long time.

Yeah, but if they're planning to make that continent Avaloren, it needs more time to simmer. I'm fine with them planting the seeds for Avaloren as a potential future setting and continuing to plant more in 11.0 and 12.0, but them announcing, "Guys, the next expansion setting is that random zone mentioned in a book less than a year ago. Yes, exactly, that book 0.1% of players bothered to read." is just absurd.

If the next expansion is Avaloren, prepare for a lot of confused and angry posts from people who had never even heard of the place. The "Blizzard has run out of ideas" crowd will have a field day with Avaloren.

[Azalar]

Yet most zones in WoW, like Zandalar, Kul Tiras, the Broken Isles or Outland have all been similar; just rougher shapes.

Also, killing the variety because you know the shape beforehand? In every zone, we know the shape beforehand if you look at the map. This doesn't prevent the designers from adding variety. And " (...) not just some mountains in a self-contained space. " = essentally EVERY zone. We know the outline and everything in there is all contained in that zone.

This AI example is just more along the lines of Zereth Mortis, which you also described as a good example.

All the arguments you give, fall flat because this applies to the current zones as well.

I fail to see how this brings up any constructive discussion lol

Of course most areas will include a bunch of mountains in a determined constrained space because that's just how areas in a basic worldbuilding environment work. I'm just saying that symmetrical layouts are generally uninteresting, feel unnatural and are hard to work with. As I said, if such a shape can be justified ingame with lore or whatever, then fine.

[Teriz]

Avaloren was first mentioned fairly recently, but something on the other side of Azeroth has been speculated for a long time.

Speculated by players. I’m not aware of Blizzard ever confirming that.

[Nyel]

They have Classic now, they don't need to obsess over nostalgia pandering with retail as much anymore.

They should though. Dragonflight was setting-wise a step in the right direction, but its characters and stories were just too boring to leave an impression. Making the next expansion taking place at a completely unknown place with the same boring main characters will not be a success either, they will retread Dragonflight, but yet again make the mistake of neglecting what Warcraft is and was about.

That’s why I don’t think Avaloren is what’s coming next. It would feel like Shadowlands, but with less excitement and punch. Do we want that? Does WoW need that at the moment? Absolutely not.

Dragonflight as of 10.2 doesn’t have a climax. It began pretty flat and became worse over its duration. Avaloren would definitely not feel like a climax anyway, so 1.5 or 2 expansions of building up tension without ever reaching a climax? Uhm… it’s not going to work.

[Teriz]

Unless you played a Dracthyr, it wasn't a zone until they made it accessible again in a later patch. And even as a starting zone it was pathetically short and didn't have much exploration value. I think it took like 20 minutes to do the intro quest and that was it.

I wouldn't count Broken Shore as a launch zone either.

Okay but you’re saying that Evokers got 5 zones in DF and everyone else got 4. That still means DF had 5 zones at launch. Just because everyone can’t access something doesn’t mean that it’s nonexistent.