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

[Cheezits]

Yeah everything ends that's not some crazy revelation.

The point isn't that WoW will eventually end, it sucks to see your favorite game spiraling in popularity and quality even with supposedly the full backing of giant studios and larger development teams. There's a reason that the Avaloren leak has been widely panned.

So WoW may keep going, but if we get boring rehash zones with little to no new models, does anyone want to play it?

[Teriz]

But its not definitively telling us that. There could be 11 zones it that were real.

The leak those screenshots supposedly were related to said 4 zones.

Again, it doesn't matter. There's little chance the next expansion takes place on Avaloren.

[Selorian]

Raiding was never the focal point of WoW. It was always about the RP experience & w/ Metzen at the helm again I could absolutely see the direction spinning this way. People want more RPG elements back in their MMORPG, not just an endless dungeon/raid grind

There is literally no evidence that backs this up.

There are like 2 active RP servers per region, completely dwarfed by the number of people who don't care about RP at all. I wouldn't be surprised if Illidan-NA alone had more players than all the active RP servers combined.

When they tried to implement an RPG feature in Shadowlands (covenant locks) it was overwhelmingly unpopular. Like, one of the most unpopular features ever.

[Moth Preacher]

Where leaks from the website's update

[Bsirk]

There is no virtual ticket, it's just a digital goody bag this time around.

Yeah that was it! I was confused. (won't be the last time)

[Nyel]

Man, I wonder if something happened during Shadowlands that would make people shy away from Blizzard products?

Nah, it couldn't be, it has to be something that fits my narrative.

No idea how that’s contradicting what I’ve said.

[micwini]

Where leaks from the website's update

Soon brother. Just a bit more patience.

[Ersula]

Hotpocket's response imo is a good response to this.

If anything Diablo 4 tells us people who want emersion will pay for it in the cosmetics shop. The people designing the actual game are crunching damage numbers.

I think for the most part people that are still into MMOs now that the genre is nothing special are specifically looking for that experience of getting to be a character in a world.

Should they? Yes. Will they? No. Because like I said: The WoW Game Director & President of Blizzard were literally professional WoW raiders.

[Azalar]

In all honesty, I envy Teriz's determination and resolve.

[Demonly]

So they've decided to tease all the new stuff in OW2 on a blog..

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/over...-blizzcon-2023

I wonder if one for WoW is coming.

[PotHockets]

If anything Diablo 4 tells us people who want emersion will pay for it in the cosmetics shop. The people designing the actual game are crunching damage numbers.

It's not A or B though. Or at least it shouldn't be. It needs to be both. People need to be able to ungabunga and just go but they also need to be able to be like "Damn that's a nice view" and just stop for a second sometimes. It's like people that raid on RP servers, I mean I assume people must raid on RP servers I don't actually know; but say you have a Mythic raid guild on an RP server. Sometimes they just wanna be a turbonerd and do the mythic raiding with all the number crunching and meta chasing and then some days they just wanna throw on a mog and stand in Stormwind pretending to sell apples. You need both to make a compelling mmo world.

[Demonly]

If anything Diablo 4 tells us people who want emersion will pay for it in the cosmetics shop. The people designing the actual game are crunching damage numbers.Should they? Yes. Will they? No. Because like I said: The WoW Game Director & President of Blizzard were literally professional WoW raiders.

And guess who is at the helm now? The RPG lord himself whom will DOOMHAMMER someone into oblivion.

[Woggmer]

2022: *decent expansion with good retention but smaller playerbase*
2023: "Blizzard just needs to earn trust" <--- YOU ARE HERE
2024: *decent expansion 2 with good retention but even smaller playerbase*
2025: "Blizzard just needs to earn trust"
2026: *decent expansion 3 with good retention but even smaller playerbase*
2027: "Blizzard just needs to earn trust"

And so on. If Blizzard doesn't bother to do a big expansion, the game will eventually just end.

Yep. Mediocrity Stagnation... And even if Ion says "A revamp is very likely to happen at some point" I'm starting to think that might just be a lie to say "We want to, but we can't unless we have some success with this expansion."

[Marlamin]

So they've decided to tease all the new stuff in OW2 on a blog..

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/over...-blizzcon-2023

I wonder if one for WoW is coming.

This post is probably as close as we're gonna get

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...n-november-3-4

[matijwow]

One lore point I haven't seen yet for a revamp connection.

A Song of the Depths says:

Even now, the Harbinger gathers the children of the first flesh to reclaim what was lost. They must remember their vows and serve those to whom they owe fealty.

The curse of the flesh gave flesh to the Titan-made stone beings, but Old Gods directly created the faceless ones. Fleshbeasts are also made by the void directly.

Tyr was killed by two faceless one generals (C'Thraxxi). Tyr partially killed one in Tirisfal but it was really just dormant until we fight it in Legion and Xal'atath consumes it.

The other one, Kith'ix, eventually fought the trolls and was "killed." On top of its body, the trolls built Zul'Aman. https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Kith%27ix

If there's a partial revamp which includes Ghostlands and Eversong, they could not only expand the accessible land around Zul'Aman but have this lore tie in there.

[Well Done Steak]

The leak those screenshots supposedly were related to said 4 zones.

Again, it doesn't matter. There's little chance the next expansion takes place on Avaloren.

So what exactly makes you think underground has a higher chance of being 11.0 than avaloren?

Cuz it's clear that avaloren will be heavy in titan lore based on it's books and right now we have a rogue elemental dragon who's going to use the world soul as bait to force the Titans to come back while the impending resurrection of tyr, the most famous of the keepers, both lorewise and with players.

Don't see how any of that hints at underground much less the capital of goblins.

The most underground we'll get is probably uldaz since that's probably where the world soul is. I don't see undermine being the focal point of the expansion we meet and save Azeroth (titan)

[ZyntosAran]

So they've decided to tease all the new stuff in OW2 on a blog..

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/over...-blizzcon-2023

I wonder if one for WoW is coming.

It was already known ow2 is getting a new hero and season, and thats the only thing this teases next to "more stuff".
Its like saying hearthstone will get a new set, or d4 will show its new season.

[Demonly]

This post is probably as close as we're gonna get

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...n-november-3-4

At least we know it's content coming to Azeroth and not a completely new world.

[milkmustache]

Well, what a hell of a 7 days we're about to have friends.

I have no idea where any of this will go, but I hope it goes towards the direction of the betterment of the game for the community.

[Northelim]

Hey, a joint would be cool too

I totally get where you're coming from with the Augment rune and I would agree this could be a sign of .2 being the last major raid tier, but I would only stop there. 10.3 could be a bridge patch -> what's the come next.

I'm imagining it like this..

10.2 is the last raid tier.. and to bridge the gap between a potential (2025) release date they are releasing 10.3 which includes Avaloren, some new story, beginning phases of a world revamp & a new mega infinite dungeon (Uldaz). This would make sense with the item referencing Uldaz, & how "Avaloren" was conceptually introduced at the start of Dragonflight, finally bridging the story -> world revamp (11.0) -> conflict w/ Irikidon & Xal.

This gives them the extra time they need to fulfil the wishes of a world revamp, while also not having a huge content drought, maybe even world quests throughout the world start popping up during 10.3 & the bridge to 11.0 makes it worthwhile.

I mean maybe it is possible in some shape or form, but I am deeply hoping that IF there is a 10.3 (which I doubt) they save Avaloren for 11.0. It would be a shame for them just to use it on a patch like that. Then again, they did it with Nazjatar, Argus and Nyalotha and do not even get me fucking started on BFA. That expansion was such a mess story-wise, it was all over the place and tried to tell too many things.

Nazjatar deserved its own expansion/setting and so did Nyalotha. I am still hoping for a real Black Empire Expansion, but that is just hopium and wishful thinking with a personal bias. Old God/Titans is my favorite lore.

What I do know for a fact is that Tyr is 100% going to be our bridge to the next expansion. Now whether that takes us to Khaz Algar or Avaloren is a different story, bu I would imagine Khaz Algar. Tyr does NOT want us to go to Avaloren. He warned a green dragon not to go there and I have a feeling he did that because they are trying to keep "Order" and there are certain things they do not wish for the mortals to see. The green dragon went there and was never heard of again, so my speculation is that we will go there to see what happened to her. There is also a in-game document that says there are a bunch of heretics there and how Odyn sent an army of his men who were absolutely slaughtered.

ingame descriptions like these just make it sound way too big and far too important for it to be a 10.3 patch, this has to be its own dedicated thing. As much as I'd love a world revamp in 11.0 I do not think we will have it this soon. World revamp is too much work, they would need to divide that into 2 expansions and update the areas over time. Or even if there is a revamp, it might just be on a smaller scale.

Either way, exciting times ahead, so we shall find out in a week here.