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

[Rathwell]

A good point. The Vulpera homeland could totally be Azeroth Japan.

Imperial Japan.

As the Alliance and Horde fought among themselves they managed to deplete the forces of both factions. Meanwhile, the Vulpera laboured in secret to resurrect their realm and create a new Eternal Empire in their noble homeland. No longer will they suffer the corruption of the Horde or mockery from the Alliance. All will learn of Vulperan superiority. The Imperial fleet stands ready and shogun Meera marshals her forces for the Great Campaign. Now is the day that destiny has promised us. Now is the day Azeroth learns humility.

[Nymrohd]

Looking at those 4 images of Avaloren, I'm actually excited about the biomes shown. Additionally, I'm curious what the continent will look like on a map. The Dragon Isles, for example, we're designed so well (Waking Shores at the lowest point followed by every zone climbing in altitude). Loved it!

Can I ask what excited you about them?

[Woggmer]

That doesn't change the possibility of them being a sub-race that has adapted to the desert.

Though, it does raise the question... Why would the Vulpera they move out to the desert especially in a place full of hostile snake people?

[Hitei]

Update on this, upon further investigating it appears that the Auspicious Arborwyrm mount might be in BOTH Retail and Classic and that "unknown mount A" (the mount using elemental/wind assets) might be the Auspicious Arborwyrm, which fits with the theme of the assets.

It also implies the Fyrn pet (retail) that shares assets with Unknown Mount A is related to it somehow and by extension probably the Cypress pet (classic) as well. Maybe we're getting expanded Lunar New Year rewards for both Retail and Classic?

Guess based on glide events + slitherdrake silhouette one more step towards confirmed?

[ercarp]

I have this headcannon that there were more than 4 August Cestials. First off because we are missing the Qilin. Second, the Rogue set from Throne of Thunder is fox based and called Nine-Tail Battlegear. What is there was a Kyubi Kitsune Wild God that Lei Shen killed. We know he imprisoned Xuen, Niuzao and Chi Ji. Maybe there were more and he killed them.

I like this.

[allifeur]

I have this headcannon that there were more than 4 August Cestials. First off because we are missing the Qilin. Second, the Rogue set from Throne of Thunder is fox based and called Nine-Tail Battlegear. What is there was a Kyubi Kitsune Wild God that Lei Shen killed. We know he imprisoned Xuen, Niuzao and Chi Ji. Maybe there were more and he killed them.

The night elves also used to have a fox god we have never seen, before the Sundering. There is a base for something, and Blizzard could easily introduce more variants of vulpera if they wished to do so... But there's also a risk for those details to be forgotten by the lore. I wonder if Lord Renard from Ardenweald has anything to do with all this, considering he never had any use.

I remember this fanart from back in Legion:

[Marlamin]

Guess based on glide events + slitherdrake silhouette one more step towards confirmed?

Yeah, it would be the first dragonriding mount that isn't rewarded through story/ingame (unless the pre-order comes out first/at BlizzCon, then it might be the second).

[Woggmer]

The central concept was to give people a faction vs faction activity that was PvE. A significant number of players never engage in pvp. I would not be surprised if they are a majority even.

Actually people were hoping that there was a PvP option, but there weren't any... and yet Island Expeditions has a pvp option, why couldn't Warfronts be similar?

[ercarp]

Though, it does raise the question... Why would the Vulpera they move out to the desert especially in a place full of hostile snake people?

Either they were exiled from their homeland or left willingly because of <insert lore explanation> and just ended up in a pretty bad place.

[vintage79]

I'm gonna make (yet another) bold prediction for Warcraft at BlizzCon:

• World of Warcraft: Storms of Avaloren is announced, featuring our first continent in the west, beyond artificial storms created by Odyn to keep those on Ancient Kalimdor from discovering the ones he consider to be heretics. The Khaz Algarians are a people enslaved by Xal'atath, but some among them wish to break free. The Stormriders are Erinithria's green storm drakes guarding the realms of life by protecting the roots of Elun'Ahir. If Dragonflight was the warm-up in terms of dragonriding and dragons being cool, then SoA is the epic climax. Coming in the autumn of 2024.
• WoW Classic: Cataclysm is announced. Coming summer of 2024.
• Retail and Classic WoW both recieve a HD update to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. No major world revamp at this time, but it is coming later. The HD update arrives on November 23, 2024.
• New seasons announced for Classic, that for the first time will open up new and never before seen content to the original Classic. Each season will explore a new theme, but you will be able to keep all of it on an Era server. The first one explores the Emerald Nightmare and is released in the spring of 2024. We'll also get a rough roadmap of upcoming seasons for Classic.
• Blizzard will also show a retail roadmap for roughly where we are headed in the next few years. No major story spoilers or firm comittments, but we will get an idea of what the other side of Azeroth really looks like beyond Avaloren, to keep us speculating for years to come. Perhaps the outline of additional continents behind a fog of war. There will also be a 2024 roadmap for upcoming Dragonflight patches, the 11.0 pre-release event, and the expansion launch itself.
• New content for Hearthstone including Battlegrounds breaking out as its own app, a few unpopular game modes retired, and the Hearthstone app being a cleaner, simpler experience focused on traditional gameplay. There will also be a 2024 roadmap that teases the upcoming 3 expansions.
• New content for Rumble, including cosmetics and a future expansion of the map to Outland.
• The big surprise: Warcraft coming to Netflix in 2024!

The biggest **problem** i see is that both Retail/Classic/Wotlk/ wants to be futher developed
it's no longer just 'let's set up a classic server and bye'. More and more content means running 3 separate games and it is necessary to share resources - whatever big they are (I know these are truisms) and we are reaching the point where one version will 'suffer' becouse of others.

and i bet it will be retail...

[Nymrohd]

Though, it does raise the question... Why would the Vulpera they move out to the desert especially in a place full of hostile snake people?

They could have always been nomadic. Before the Sundering their migration patterns could have covered multiple areas that are no longer even in the map. And we don't know when the Sethrak became hostile; it is the Faithless who enslave Vulpera after all so it is likely the Vulpera had friendly contact with the Sethrak for ages before Korthek's betrayal.

[Catastrophy349]

Can I ask what excited you about them?

The images themselves are basic AF. However, what they "represent (desert, icy/snow, jungle, and forest)" are interesting to me. Also, the creatures shown (again, basic AF) are interesting to me (Gryphon, Dwarf, Harpy, etc.).

[Zaganite]

It would not make sense as Celtic Design is associated with the Vrykul and Drust, one of them being forces of Odyn the other being poorly received.

Wait the Drust was poorly received? Anyone I've talked to loved the Drust and felt in BfA they should have had more of a story then what we got.

Back on this though, I do think it's Avaloren but I do hope it's a Celtic vibe of an expansion

[Gigantique]

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.

As someone who plays endgame on one of those RP servers (I know, F) RP =/= wanting that "adventurer" feel again. I haven't touched RP but still enjoy questing and having my toons look like they're "supposed to", match races and classes as fits with the lore, chill during quests and immerse myself in them etc etc.

[Ferlion]

Yeah, it would be the first dragonriding mount that isn't rewarded through story/ingame (unless the pre-order comes out first/at BlizzCon, then it might be the second).

We got a mount through trading post

[Hitei]

Yeah, it would be the first dragonriding mount that isn't rewarded through story/ingame (unless the pre-order comes out first/at BlizzCon, then it might be the second).

Is there a way to casually browse keys alongside their tentative descriptions? Was curious what's on the first unknown mount B key (the one that isn't 460AA8E1D10CF66D), but don't see a straightforward way to locate that key short of just clicking through random db2s and files hoping to find one which has that encryption.

[Marlamin]

We got a mount through trading post

Oh right, I forgot about the Grotto Drake, but I guess that one can still be acquired without spending additional cash.

[Hitei]

We got a mount through trading post

Trading post in in-game.

[Marlamin]

Is there a way to casually browse keys alongside their tentative descriptions? Was curious what's on the first unknown mount B key (the one that isn't 460AA8E1D10CF66D), but don't see a straightforward way to locate that key short of just clicking through random db2s and files hoping to find one which has that encryption.

For wow.tools.local you can navigate to /files/keyinfo.html, the key hashes are clickable searches that'll send you to the files page (you can also find key lookups on the wiki).

[Hitei]

For wow.tools.local you can navigate to /files/keyinfo.html, the key hashes are clickable searches that'll send you to the files page (you can also find key lookups on the wiki).

Ah, and that works for local too, sweet. Thanks!

I went to the github in search for it, but then obviously the list there is just the functional table of the keys themselves.