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

[Rathwell]

Eh, no. They don't teleport behind or nuke them from orbit, because it wold instantly resolve all the battles in a cheapest way possible. Not because of classic medieval fantasy themes (and the game has been steadily drifting away from tem with introduction of new tech, planets and other dimensions). This is a common trap of introducing sci-fi elements (weaponry). You have to somehow make characters not rely on them all the time, so we have moments when they "forget" that they even exist.

Right, but that's kind of what I'm saying. Although they introduce greater tech that should reasonably take the story in a different direction, they bungee cord back to the medieval status quo. "We have a new spaceship capable of travelling between planets and nuking from orbit, but now we'll conveniently forget about it so we can go back to regular old medieval fantasy warfare".

No matter what tech they put into WoW, they're just never going to veer far from the medieval setting. They have the technology to build advanced modern-like cities like that of the Goblins of Kezan or the gnomes of Gnomeregan, but we all know that at the end of the day humans are going to live in medieval castles and tauren are going to live in huts. Cars exist, even modern battle tanks and motorcycles, but at the end of the day, we know humans are going to ride their horses into battle.

No matter how much tech is available, it doesn't fit with the medieval fantasy vibe they're often going for, so it'll be discarded in favor of the medieval tech and aesthetic regardless of how little sense that makes

[Teriz]

The player character is pretty well known for being special so this point doesn’t make sense.

And additionally, every race can already learn engineering & make some pretty advanced stuff. To include wormhole generators, rocket launchers, turrets, bombs, and even mechs.

So instead of doing that as a side profession while being a mage/monk/dk/warrior… they’d simply do Engineering full time to be a tinker.

Yeah, let me know when we have a lore-based Human character named Sony Stank flying around in a mech suit. Then I'll buy this.

[Krakerz]

I highly doubt you're getting Druids expanded to every race. If it happens I'll bet the first on here saying I'm wrong.

I mean the devs did say they're doing exactly that, I doubt they'd just change their minds suddenly after already opening up most classes.

[Makabreska]

Why not? They don't have to waste time on borrowed powers. They can spend that time now on new classes.

Disregarding "reasons" like patterns, I think devs were just too busy with first revamping all the classes/specs in DF, and then reworking those which didn't work. That might prevent them from inventing a new class.

[Darkarath]

What's the original source for this?

Just a random post of this thread. It barely got any attention because it is obviously fake.

[pacotaco]

The past has looked like this:

TBC: New races
WotLK: New class
Cataclysm: New combos and redesigned specs, new races
Mists of Pandaria: New race and class
Warlords of Draenor: new race models
Legion: New class
Battle for Azeroth: New races
Shadowlands: neither
Dragonflight: New race and class

We've never had two new classes back to back, but we almost always get one of the two. So, I'm hoping for a race this time around!

And I already explained on this same thread:

Not really. If I calculated the time correctly:
- Vanilla: 2004-10-23
- TBC: 2007-01-16 (~2y 3m) -> Added paladin for Horde and Shaman for Alliance with exclusive spells for that faction. If I remember correctly they ended giving access to the opposite faction spells around the last part of the expansion.
- WotLK: 2008-11-13 (~1y 10m) -> Added DK
- Cata: 2010-12-07 (~2y 1m) -> Class redesign (mostly simplifying talent trees, how primary and secondary stats work, etc.)
- MoP: 2012-07-25 (~1y 7m) -> Added Monk, talent system revamp.
- WoD: 2014-11-13 (~2y 4m) -> Another stat revamp.
- Legion: 2016-08-30 (~1y 9m) -> Added DH. Added several legendaries for each class. Added the Artifacts (basically another talent tree for each spec on top of their actual talent tree)
- BfA: 2018-08-13 (~2y) -> Added Azerite gear (another borrowed power with again another accesory talent tree for each class on top of their ones). Added Azeite Essences (an extra talent tree). Added corruption (ANOTHER class system)
- SL: 2020-11-23 (~2y 2m) -> Added covenant powers. Added covenant class powers. Added covenant conduits. Added Thorgast powers.

In each expansion, the amount of work into classes is at minimum the neeeded for a new class (the ones with no class instead they reworked systems or went crazy adding a lot of stackable systems). If you look closely, the amount of work put in SL is like 3x the work in WotLK.

Now, in DF [2022-11-28 (~2y)] with no borrowed powers, that free time let them do:
- Complete talent revamp.
- New class with a new combat system.
- Rework several specs (I don't recall how many, 4?)

So if they don't go crazy again to add new systems/borrowed powers they can easily add 1 class (or even 2).

[Nightshade711]

Yeah, let me know when we have a lore-based Human character named Sony Stank flying around in a mech suit. Then I'll buy this.

As I said the player character has always been special.
And we can already do this on a human character (or any other race) as a engineer so…

[Foolicious]

I'm quite sure the customizable moonkin is the first step of making them available for all races - why create a new, customizable but generic form (where you can always add additional options aswell in the future) if you plan on creating new moonkin forms for all the other races anyways. It literally cuts down on 1/5 of the work they have to do initially, especially as they always can add "full transformations" down the line if they really want it.

I just hate that they forgot to change the incarnate form. You have all this customization and then you press your cooldown and you change back to your generic moonkin form that wears t5. And also uses different animations.

[Teriz]

Weird because all of this can already happen now. We’ve got a lot of mechanical/tech themed mounts (including mechs), pets (hunter & not), and toys.

None of that is lore-based though except the Gnome Hunters and the mechanical pets. Everything else is just vanity items. As long as it isn't in lore, it can be ignored.

Seeing a giant mech running around summoning robot sentries & shooting lasers all over the place would ruin your idea of the “medieval element” regardless if it’s a Gnome or Elf doing it.

Again, you would view it as something unique to the Gnomish race, and potentially a reason why you despise that race. You start seeing Elves doing it, and your immersion is broken, because now we have Elves building and flying around in Gundam mechs.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I just realised something... most of the assets that were revamped for Hallow's End never made it to live servers. And by assets I mean these: https://www.wowhead.com/fr/news/new-...34976#comments

Is it because they're attached to 10.2? Does it mean we'll at least see updated assets for the Pilgrim's Bounty?

[FossilFree]

I think we could get a technology class at some point, it just won't overlap at all with engineering or steal things from engineering like tinkers (the "enchants" engineering makes). The concept would get a lot more mileage if people stopped insisting on naming it something it will never be called. Naming it something like "Mechanic" or "Pilot" works a lot better.

First of all, it needs to be a race-agnostic class and not themed specifically around gnomes or goblins (full disclosure, I play a gnome). Mech suits do work for the hypothetical class, simply because it's not something engineering really does. Sure, we had one total mech suit experiment in Legion that went no where, so it's probably okay for that to go to a new class. They need to be steampunk mech suits though, not Gundams. Grenades are not going to happen (engineering, survival hunters). Neither are robotic pets of any kind (hunters). Claw packs are just silly and not cool or exciting imo. Turrets have been used by engineering once or twice, so it could go either way on those. They aren't really a perennial addition to engineering, but it's also not a one-off.

You could also bypass all this tiptoeing around engineering to make a tech class by simply making them a magitech class. Magic-based technology is more in line with what a class does than a profession anyways, and you aren't shackled to a steampunk thematic anymore either. We have plenty of examples too, from Karazhan, to Quel'thalas, to Blackrock Depths, to pretty much every version of Eredar. So my money is on an artificer class that uses a draenei-style Vigilant mech, crystal turrets attuned to different cosmic forces, and magical golems and constructs. They could even take their rivalry with Final Fantasy one step further and "borrow" their magitek armor.

[Marlamin]

Kakapo exist in-game so I'm going to need a Kakapo race in 11.0, anything else will gravely disappoint me and I will leave these forums forever (but I'll actually be back in a day).

[Teriz]

As I said the player character has always been special.
And we can already do this on a human character (or any other race) as a engineer so…

Except you really can't. Which is why you don't see any human character in lore doing it. They're using magic and medieval-level weaponry.

[Nightshade711]

None of that is lore-based though except the Gnome Hunters and the mechanical pets. Everything else is just vanity items. As long as it isn't in lore, it can be ignored.

I mean there are plenty of engineering quests, like in Legion for example. So it’s clearly part of lore somewhere.

Again, you would view it as something unique to the Gnomish race, and potentially a reason why you despise that race. You start seeing Elves doing it, and your immersion is broken, because now we have Elves building and flying around in Gundam mechs.

Which still is a nonissue if that’s already a thing in the setting / gameplay.

[Marlamin]

I just realised something... most of the assets that were revamped for Hallow's End never made it to live servers. And by assets I mean these: https://www.wowhead.com/fr/news/new-...34976#comments

Is it because they're attached to 10.2? Does it mean we'll at least see updated assets for the Pilgrim's Bounty?

Yeah, they weren't backported to live so we won't see them until Hallows End 2024. We -might- for Pilgrim's Bounty if they've actually replaced all the model references yet as these are new assets, not guaranteed replacements for current ones.

[huth]

I mean, that info comes directly from the game.

[IMG]

I guess you could do some mental gymnastics and say that it's "magic" because it's not a true anti-matter device, but rather a mumbo-jumbo hyper-injection fel matter anti-matter device. And because fel doesn't exist in the real world, it falls in the realm of "magic". But it sounds pretty mechanical to me.

The problem comes from pretending the two are incompatible. Magic powered technology and technology powered magic are everywhere in WoW. Another reason it isn't remotely "medieval fantasy".

Should be noted that a matter/antimatter reaction is indeed not mechanical, though. That doesn't have anything to do with fantasy, magic or technology however.

[pacotaco]

Not sure if a new class is so unthinkable as people are supposing. There's a lot on the line right now. The new expansion has to check a lot of boxes, people are expecting loads of exciting new features and stuff given that they have massively grown the wow team in the last year. I know I am at least

If anything, the most likely new feature in the next expansion is a new class.
- They need new features for selling expansions.
- It's easier to sell a new class than additional specs for existing classes.
- The worker resources previously spent on borrowed powers and additional systems is now used on actual class design (as seen in current expansion)
- They just added a spec with a new role, forcing them to add more specs with that role soon to make easier for them class balance and design.

[Darkarath]

Seems that we are talking about Tinkers.

I would love to have them. I do not think that they are coming in 11.0 though, I am putting my money on 3-4-5 new specs for existing classes.

Maaaaaybe we might get them if they are available as a "second" class to every character, but they should fit in the expansion theme, and I just do not see Tinkers working in any of the most possible expansions for 11.0.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Why not? They don't have to waste time on borrowed powers. They can spend that time now on new classes.

While I also doubt it, I hope that it would at least be a class without a shitty gimmik like a fugly race with broken transmog system and annoying mechanics...

[Teriz]

I mean there are plenty of engineering quests, like in Legion for example. So it’s clearly part of lore somewhere.

But it's not. Professions are optional content not attached to lore and don't directly effect your character. You can through WoW from level 1 to 70 and never do any professions, or have anything to do with professions.

Which still is a nonissue if that’s already a thing in the setting / gameplay.

The setting states plainly that Gnomes and Goblins are steeped in technology, not Elves.