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

[Shadowferal]

To change the topic, how do we feel about about the direction Blizzard is taking wows magic system?

I can't speak for "we" but I can't help but think that most see that "cosmic map" as trash.

[Nymrohd]

I can't speak for "we" but I can't help but think that most see that "cosmic map" as trash.

World building by spreadsheet. Instead of trying to create a cosmology organically, you just superimpose a pattern on it and force things to conform. Which is very much common, D&D did it after all but at least they made a massive effort on it.

[huth]

It's also really weird, when the other forces don't have these splits within their spheres.
Death, Light, Void and Fel do not have those seperated magic types.

...Covenants? Have you already forgotten how they each have a different approach and vastly different looks to their respective Death magic?

What the Green and Red professor do in Algeth'ar is certainly within the realm of possibility of both still being Life magic, just from different schools of thought.

[Raetary]

...Covenants? Have you already forgotten how they each have a different approach and vastly different looks to their respective Death magic?

I haven't forgotten anything.

None of them use any seperate magic type, it's all just different manifestations of the same thing.
They don't use any different vocabulary to refer to their powers either, it's all under the umbrella of "Death Magic".

Whereas Order and Arcane have now been split to seemingly be different magic categories.
And Nature/Life having the same thing implied.

[Shadowferal]

World building by spreadsheet. Instead of trying to create a cosmology organically, you just superimpose a pattern on it and force things to conform. Which is very much common, D&D did it after all but at least they made a massive effort on it.

"Organic" is a word that I enjoy in my own revision.
The only way Blizz can course correct imo is to create separate servers for a new version. But Blizz doesn't seem interested at all. The enthusiasm just doesn't seem to be there.

[Raetary]

Considering WoW is essentially barely even halfway done, based off the plot potential still to occur...

The fact that wow is "half-way done" and it still, after almost 20 years, doesn't have a coherent magic system is not a good thing.

[Shadowferal]

The fact that wow is "half-way done" and it still, after almost 20 years, doesn't have a coherent magic system is not a good thing.

"How low will they go?"
That doesn't resonate well to me.

[huth]

I haven't forgotten anything.

None of them use any seperate magic type, it's all just different manifestations of the same thing.
They don't use any different vocabulary to refer to their powers either, it's all under the umbrella of "Death Magic".

Whereas Order and Arcane have now been split to seemingly be different magic categories.
And Nature/Life having the same thing implied.

What evidence do you have that the difference is greater?

[Raetary]

What evidence do you have that the difference is greater?

The terminology used to describe it?
The way the magic is differentiated within the game?

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If it was the same magic, there wouldn't be a need to describe it differently.

If it was just all arcane, the characters wouldn't be going around talking about "Order magic", they'd just say 'Arcane magic' instead, like they did over the last 20 years until now.

[Nightshade711]

The terminology used to describe it?
The way the magic is differentiated within the game?

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If it was the same magic, there wouldn't be a need to describe it differently.

If it was just all arcane, the characters wouldn't be going around talking about "Order magic", they'd just say 'Arcane magic' instead, like they did over the last 20 years until now.

Also for some reason “Order magic” has gold coloration whereas arcane is more violet/purple.

Which doesn’t make sense because that kind of gold is already being used by the light.

[Super Dickmann]

Chronicle trying to affix arcane which was all about being chaotic and was only different from fel by degrees rather than by nature prior into being the tool of Order never made much sense. It nixed arcane as a whole being corruptive and made a whole lot of plots dubious, not helped by how it was no longer a factor in luring the Legion as that's now based on the worldsoul. Dragonflight is only muddying this further by the nomenclature change which may or may not amount to anything.

[loras]

Chronicle trying to affix arcane which was all about being chaotic and was only different from fel by degrees rather than by nature prior into being the tool of Order never made much sense. It nixed arcane as a whole being corruptive and made a whole lot of plots dubious, not helped by how it was no longer a factor in luring the Legion as that's now based on the worldsoul.

This, with the sidenote that they did maintain a tenuous connection between the worldsoul and the arcane via Azerite.
Practically though it still reeks of inconsistencies.

Might be their introduction of "order" magic is an attempt to fix that failure though.
The blueish/purple/violet/white of the arcane seems vastly different from "order" which leans towards azerite's coloration.

I would hope they try for arcane being something more neutral, a counterpart to "elementium" being the sum of all elemental forces.
Would explain arcane's pluriform nature, if it is something in betwern all others, and it would align with the twisting nether being essentially the realm of the arcane.

It would also imply that titans by nature are arcane creatures, rather than order, which fits much better with almost all we've seen.

[Sondrelk]

Chronicle trying to affix arcane which was all about being chaotic and was only different from fel by degrees rather than by nature prior into being the tool of Order never made much sense. It nixed arcane as a whole being corruptive and made a whole lot of plots dubious, not helped by how it was no longer a factor in luring the Legion as that's now based on the worldsoul. Dragonflight is only muddying this further by the nomenclature change which may or may not amount to anything.

Isn't the whole shtick with Arcane that you are taking inherently chaotic energies and ordering them? The corruptive aspect was that you were near the chaotic energies and that you could lose control over them, which led to Fel once you effectively gave up controlling the energies.

Maybe if Arcane was specifically Fel energies ordered th e it would make sense.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

To change the topic, how do we feel about about the direction Blizzard is taking wows magic system?

They now established a difference between Order and Arcane magic and implied a difference between Life and Nature in the Al'gethar dungeon.
Which irks me quite a bit.

Differentiating between Nature and Life, while it certainly could make sense, it's entirely redundant.

And with 'Order magic' being a thing, it puts Arcane in this weird position.
It got stripped of its status as 'the' magic aligned with Order and now just kinda exists in this place of it being weirdly tied to the titans, but also not.

It's also really weird, when the other forces don't have these splits within their spheres.
Death, Light, Void and Fel do not have those seperated magic types.

Death just flat out doesn't, as we just learnt all we could about it.
And even if we did mindlessly seperate the rest, because we definitely could as we do have the canon vocabulary to do that (e.g Light/Holy, Fel/Disorder), they would be even more redundant than the Life/Nature thing is.

Order is the only real new development There’s been a separation between life and nature magic for a long long time with life being spirit which monks and shamans use and nature being well nature.

Beyond that though order magic seems like a lot of the new lore completely redundant and unneeded just like the first ones jailer domination magic ect.

[Super Dickmann]

This, with the sidenote that they did maintain a tenuous connection between the worldsoul and the arcane via Azerite.
Practically though it still reeks of inconsistencies.

Might be their introduction of "order" magic is an attempt to fix that failure though.
The blueish/purple/violet/white of the arcane seems vastly different from "order" which leans towards azerite's coloration.

I would hope they try for arcane being something more neutral, a counterpart to "elementium" being the sum of all elemental forces.
Would explain arcane's pluriform nature, if it is something in betwern all others, and it would align with the twisting nether being essentially the realm of the arcane.

It would also imply that titans by nature are arcane creatures, rather than order, which fits much better with almost all we've seen.

Azerite is actually the closest we've gotten to the original variant of arcane and is yet another reason why this retcon was a poor idea. It's raw potential and like the Well of Eternity mutates and amplifies characteristics. (in the book it was introduced in anyway, in all others it's just [Magic Dust] but nevermind)

In general, I like @Sondrelk 's idea of having the gimmick be that the world's energies are inherently chaotic and it's called order magic because it uses formula and so on to impose on it. This also works as the distinction between order and arcane, with the former being the applied version of the former. Titans being Order-aligned in as much as they use arcane magic to impose the same sort of guidance and rules on all spheres, explaining their varying skillsets also sort of works to mesh it together. This does mean fel would be outright parasitic of those other elements and not merely chaotic, which meshes with how fel too can manipulate all those powers but breaks them down in the process. It works in neat paralell to the Spirit-Decay dichotomy for elemental magic.

[loras]

Azerite is actually the closest we've gotten to the original variant of arcane and is yet another reason why this retcon was a poor idea. It's raw potential and like the Well of Eternity mutates and amplifies characteristics. (in the book it was introduced in anyway, in all others it's just [Magic Dust] but nevermind)

In general, I like @Sondrelk 's idea of having the gimmick be that the world's energies are inherently chaotic and it's called order magic because it uses formula and so on to impose on it. This also works as the distinction between order and arcane, with the former being the applied version of the former. Titans being Order-aligned in as much as they use arcane magic to impose the same sort of guidance and rules on all spheres, explaining their varying skillsets also sort of works to mesh it together. This does mean fel would be outright parasitic of those other elements and not merely chaotic, which meshes with how fel too can manipulate all those powers but breaks them down in the process. It works in neat paralell to the Spirit-Decay dichotomy for elemental magic.

I apparantly have worded it poorly, but that is pretty much exactly what i meant; arcane being the "raw" form, order magic being "ordered" arcane.

[Berkilak]

Y'all think this is a good idea btw?

Honestly? Not at all. A good cosmology is well-defined, consistently portrayed, and completely opaque to the "reader." They absolutely should have internal documents used to ensure that depictions of magic/death/the cosmos and so on aren't ad hoc, but the players should not be privy to that information directly. It should be up to the players to think and theorize and speculate about how it all fits together, because whatever we come up with is going to be more satisfying than anything any fictional cosmology architect could ever devise.

Laying it all out makes it mundane. It takes away the wonder. It robs us of conversations that are more than semantic quibbles. It literally sets limits on the universe and restricts the scope.

[loras]

Probably because Magic in WoW, especially from a Cosmic standpoint is still a mostly unexplored variable.

I kinda just wish Blizzard released an illustration giving us the TRUE look at the WoW Cosmology and Cosmic Hierarchy, as well as a quick run-down on magics.

Like, Blizz, just make a chart that's 100% true, so that Players can look back on it to better understand stuff or to better explain things. You can still do PoVs through different lenses and whatnot, but at least give Players a true definitive look, Blizzard. Not everyone wants to put the pieces together themselves.

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Y'all think this is a good idea btw? For Blizz to still do PoVs in lore, but to also have an official 100% rundown on the Cosmology from their site or whatnot for players to look at and use in the future for discussions?

No, that's just gonna turn into them fucking themselves over. Besides it can easily make things stale.
Let unknowns and unknowables remain unknown, or something close to it, that's part of the charm of magic.

Behind the scenes? Sure, they need to make it at least sorta coherent so as to maintain suspension of disbelief.
But they should stick to PoVs at best for us, since they really need that wiggle room. After all asking them to pretty much present a set of expanded alternate physics for magic is quite a tall order, to understate things a little.

Better to avoid the pretenses of "absolute certainties" in a system that's never going to genuinely be able to involve anything close to that.

[Super Dickmann]

Y'all think this is a good idea btw? For Blizz to still do PoVs in lore, but to also have an official 100% rundown on the Cosmology from their site or whatnot for players to look at and use in the future for discussions?

They should've never tried explaining it. By default it was going to be a post-hoc explanation to 20 years of stories without it and even if it actually worked, which it didn't, it overexplained the setting and penned them in. By virtue of how the game is written it also would (and was) going to be contradicted, so better not to bother. I generally approve of the swap to more PoV-based approaches and they should stick with it going forward.

[Cheezits]

I think reshifting Order from "Arcane" to "the power that uses Arcane to order things" was a good idea in lore, even if people don't like how Order sounds. It effectively frees up Arcane to really be the "building blocks of the universe" it is in old lore while giving the Titans more to do than just be plain jane Good Boy Gods. Also brings into question what entities like Aluneth actually are, which to Blizzard's credit is a modern WoW mystery that still hasn't been solved even while Elune gets explained.

Additionally it makes Order vs Chaos more interesting because they are two factions using the same exact power in different directions. Versus "guys using the good stuff vs bad guys using the bad stuff".