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

[Sondrelk]

That's such a reach.

"Oh, we know nothing about this land! It's so random!"

"Oh, well, this doesn't count, because it's not explained or namedropped an ambigious time period before the expansion!"

They are not "retroactively justifying it".

Retroactively justifying it would mean the expansion is already out.

In five days we will know what the next expansion is, and currently what I expect from the audience if they re eal Avaloren is a big "where?"

It will probably look cool, and you would get all kinds of interesting reasons to go there, but you couldn't use the actual game ot really justify it. Saying that players would have known if they read this one fluff text in the one dungeon that I imagine most players may have run once or twice over half a year ago isn't going to cut it.
Even worse would be to expect players to know because they keep up with speculation, or worse expect players to spoil story beats by reading the stuff on the PTR.

The most likely reason for us to go to Khaz Algar currently is a potential rebellion against the Titans plotline, which has not been introduced to the players in the game yet. Meaning that the hypothetical reveal would be a whole lot of:
"For reasons you will uncover in the next patch", "raid which will be revealed at a later date", "you will help them with their unspecified problems".
Basically a whole lot of nothing over some pretty pictures.

Later patches in WoW would then have to fill in the various blanks of why going to Khaz Algar makes sense. Why Titan keepers are bad. Or even what the area is, and why we have not gone there yet.

[Auxis]

So what's the consensus on the theme of the next expansion? Void? Order? Elements? Life? Something else? A combination of all of the above?

Up in the air. We've got many potential leads atm:
- Iridikron, our current big bad, is off doing Void things with a figure presumed to be Xal'atath. Plan involves engaging the Titans somehow. Presumed to be luring them into a trap using Azeroth herself iirc.
- Queen Azshara is currently active but MIA. We have a journal of sorts from the naga perspective indicating that they are currently in action, which also mentions a Habringer IIRC.
- We have a book found on a pirate ship talking about a legendary pirate called the Nightsquall who has crossed seas before current day expeditions (he allegedly found a way to Pandaria while the mists were active), and has currently returned from a years-long expedition to the west, an uncharted area that no ship has ever returned from.

Those are the big story points.

In terms of locations, we have Avaloren and Khaz Algar based on recent books. They are pretty much the only grounded new locations mentioned this expansion.

[Nyel]

Ok so basically how exactly would it have been possible for them to not retroactively build up going to a completely new area that we don't know about without spoiling the next expansion months in advance? This is all under the premise that they are now starting to develop areas that are new and we don't know about from previous lore.

By adding context, quest lines or whatever. Heck have an NPC from there suddenly appearing, but don’t make it too obvious. Not by adding a book that 99,999999999% of the players won’t ever touch.

It‘s just so random if we go to a mysteriously hidden place that’s basically a carbon copy of the Dragon Isles, with enemies that are a carbon copy of the ones found on the Dragon Isles and with an agenda that’s at best redundant to the one on the Dragon Isles. Like…? Everybody would have to question Blizzard at that point because it couldn’t be more derivative

[Delever]

In five days we will know what the next expansion is, and currently what I expect from the audience if they re eal Avaloren is a big "where?"

It will probably look cool, and you would get all kinds of interesting reasons to go there, but you couldn't use the actual game ot really justify it. Saying that players would have known if they read this one fluff text in the one dungeon that I imagine most players may have run once or twice over half a year ago isn't going to cut it.
Even worse would be to expect players to know because they keep up with speculation, or worse expect players to spoil story beats by reading the stuff on the PTR.

The most likely reason for us to go to Khaz Algar currently is a potential rebellion against the Titans plotline, which has not been introduced to the players in the game yet. Meaning that the hypothetical reveal would be a whole lot of:
"For reasons you will uncover in the next patch", "raid which will be revealed at a later date", "you will help them with their unspecified problems".
Basically a whole lot of nothing over some pretty pictures.

Later patches in WoW would then have to fill in the various blanks of why going to Khaz Algar makes sense. Why Titan keepers are bad. Or even what the area is, and why we have not gone there yet.

Sooooooooo same exact situation as cata-> mop, MOP-> WOD and bfa-> sl?

[Moth Preacher]

Can someone give me a quick rundown as to why Scaleface's screenshots ranked as 1.5/5 in the leak spreadsheet?
Wasn't the Scaleface the one who leaked DF? + old account

UPD: nevermind, saw the notes with an explanation

[Azalar]

No, it couldn't. It has been explored and found to not work.

All of the shit you bring up has already been tried. It doesn't work. You just keep asking for a magical solution for a problem that has already been thoroughly explored because you don't like the results of that exploration.

What you ask for would just make the situation worse for no good reason because you refuse to accept that your imagination is unrealistic.

Wow alrite, no need to bite. It's okay if you don't see things the way I do, no need to get hostile over it.

[Nyel]

But sure, would that not be the case for any expansion?

Them adding a reason for us to go to, just an example, Karesh in 10.2.5/10.2.7 would have the exact same issue?

Or is it okay because it's a place they told us about in the past, so it's okay if it's not really explained? It's okay to be excited to go to Karesh with no real explanation from an Emerald Dream patch, but not to Avaloren because people don't know it?

I guess if Iridikron suddenly appears in Avaloren they already planted a seed for that. But let’s pretend Azshara ends up in Avaloren - why? What happened off screen that we’ve missed? I‘m not saying they can’t do it, I’m just saying they shouldn’t do it if they need to justify going there in the end after we already know we’re going there.

[Delever]

By adding context, quest lines or whatever. Heck have an NPC from there suddenly appearing, but don’t make it too obvious. Not by adding a book that 99,999999999% of the players won’t ever touch.

It‘s just so random if we go to a mysteriously hidden place that’s basically a carbon copy of the Dragon Isles, with enemies that are a carbon copy of the ones found on the Dragon Isles and with an agenda that’s at best redundant to the one on the Dragon Isles. Like…? Everybody would have to question Blizzard at that point because it couldn’t be more derivative

I agree with you if it turns out to be a carbon paste copy of the dragon isles. However the first part you mention is pretty much in line with a lot of expansions no? Cata into mop didn't have any npcs from Pandaria prior to the announcement. Neither did mop to wod. Neither did bfa to sl. It was sadly all built up through books and the in between patches after their announcement. So given blizzards track record I just don't see why this would suddenly be so surprising and different than what they ve done in the past.

[Sondrelk]

Ok so basically how exactly would it have been possible for them to not retroactively build up going to a completely new area that we don't know about without spoiling the next expansion months in advance? This is all under the premise that they are now starting to develop areas that are new and we don't know about from previous lore.

You have quest text and other prominent sources state that the location exists and what one could expect.

"Uldaz is far away from ancient Kalimdor". "Odyn seems to be planning a big expedition". "The Dwarves of Uldaman are not the only offspring of the Earthen". Etc.

Basically, give players a more concrete example of the area existing before you reveal it.
As has been stated many times before. Dragon Isles was not just an unused location fromthe WoW Alpha. It was also name-dropped very specifically in the BfA island expeditions as a place Wrathion was looking for. And later had an NPC in a semi prominent location after a main quest reiterate what the quest from the island expeditions said, just in case you didn't get that quest already. That being Wrathion was searching for the Dragon Isles, and was sending his agents all over the world to find clues.
The last part specifically came in 8.2, when we also just so happened to have several quests setting up the Dragon Aspects being important, which reinforced the idea of a future Dragon themed expansion set on the Dragon Isles.

[Makorus]

In five days we will know what the next expansion is, and currently what I expect from the audience if they re eal Avaloren is a big "where?"

It will probably look cool, and you would get all kinds of interesting reasons to go there, but you couldn't use the actual game ot really justify it. Saying that players would have known if they read this one fluff text in the one dungeon that I imagine most players may have run once or twice over half a year ago isn't going to cut it.
Even worse would be to expect players to know because they keep up with speculation, or worse expect players to spoil story beats by reading the stuff on the PTR.

The most likely reason for us to go to Khaz Algar currently is a potential rebellion against the Titans plotline, which has not been introduced to the players in the game yet. Meaning that the hypothetical reveal would be a whole lot of:
"For reasons you will uncover in the next patch", "raid which will be revealed at a later date", "you will help them with their unspecified problems".
Basically a whole lot of nothing over some pretty pictures.

Later patches in WoW would then have to fill in the various blanks of why going to Khaz Algar makes sense. Why Titan keepers are bad. Or even what the area is, and why we have not gone there yet.

But that's simply because it's the first post-Vanilla original zone.

Once again, I do not know why it matters if we do not know the ins-and-outs of the continent right now, and why Blizzard wouldn't explain what the place is all about. Why do we need to know "what the area is and why we have not gone there yet" right now?

We didn't know why we didn't go to Pandaria until Mists of Pandaria was revealed. Same with Dragonflight. Once again, what we knew about Pandaria was: There's Pandaren on it, and they like beer. Hell, the only reason we went to Pandaria is because it showed up.

Also, pretending like people would be more excited about Avaloren if the name was uttered in BFA by Mother, and then the Jailer namedropped it is just silly.

If the only reason people care about a zone is because they remember it, then that's a sad state of affairs. Really makes me feel like people just want a revamp so they can fly around and tell everyone that they remember those zones, and not about the actual storytelling potential.

[Teriz]

I assume they will be given in the patches to come IF avaloren is the next expansion. You re missing the part where I don't claim that I think it is 100% . I m saying it's a very real possibility and it has just as much ground to be it than Pandaria did back in the day. I d actually argue that mentioning a place backed up by more serious lore events (in this case the heretics) is more of a reason to go there than "ey there's this land somewhere where Kung Fu drunk pandas live".
Mind you, MOP was and still is my favorite expansion so I don't have any issues with Pandaria but at the time of it's announcement it was incredibly surprising to me that they actually based an entire expansion around it over just a single character and a few light hearted mentions of it.

The reason people wanted to go to Pandaria was because they wanted to travel with Chen through a fantasy version of East Asia. Others wanted to be Pandaren and Brewmasters themselves. You’re talking about one of the most popular characters in Warcraft history in Chen Stormstout, so it’s rather obvious that at some point we were going to Pandaria. Metzen and other devs all but confirmed it in various interviews.

Why are we going to Avaloren? Who’s there that we want to travel with? What’s it like? What do the people there look like? What are those people even called?

We don’t know do we? This is why it’s laughable to compare this situation to MoP. It’s not even in the same ballpark.

[Nyel]

Sooooooooo same exact situation as cata-> mop, MOP-> WOD and bfa-> sl?

I wouldn’t really call it exact. The MoP > WoD scenario was an asspull, but Cata > MoP worked well (where the we discover a previously magically hidden island still makes sense, after the third time it doesn’t) and at least for BfA > SL we had the entire Sylvanas subplot the entire expansion (although it’s been terrible from the start).

[Makorus]

The reason people wanted to go to Pandaria was because they wanted to travel with Chen through a fantasy version of East Asia. Others wanted to be Pandaren and Brewmasters themselves. You’re talking about one of the most popular characters in Warcraft history in Chen Stormstout, so it’s rather obvious that at some point we were going to Pandaria. Metzen and other devs all but confirmed it in various interviews.

Why are we going to Avaloren? Who’s there that we want to travel with? What’s it like? What do the people there look like? What are those people even called?

We don’t know do we? This is why it’s laughable to compare this situation to MoP. It’s not even in the same ballpark.

Why did we go to Pandaria?

Because an island just showed up lmao.

[Echil46]

The reason people wanted to go to Pandaria was because they wanted to travel with Chen through a fantasy version of East Asia. Others wanted to be Pandaren and Brewmasters themselves. You’re talking about one of the most popular characters in Warcraft history in Chen Stormstout, so it’s rather obvious that at some point we were going to Pandaria. Metzen and other devs all but confirmed it in various interviews.

Why are we going to Avaloren? Who’s there that we want to travel with? What’s it like? What do the people there look like? What are those people even called?

We don’t know do we? This is why it’s laughable to compare this situation to MoP. It’s not even in the same ballpark.

That's bad faith. I mean, you're mixing up "why the players want to go there" and "what's the lore justification for going there".
We got to play panda and monks because of the lore. But the actual reason the story got there has nothing to do with "we get to play a panda". Pandaria just appeared, and we learned why after the facts.

Lets say people wanna play Moknathal. We wanna follow rexxar and Misha (again). If they announce we get to play them and follow him in Avaloren, there still wouldn't be any lore justification as to why we got to go there in the first place.

[Moth Preacher]

Why did we go to Pandaria?

Whole Anduin shipwreck thing

[Sondrelk]

Sooooooooo same exact situation as cata-> mop, MOP-> WOD and bfa-> sl?

MoP maybe. But BfA to SL made sene because of the connection to Sylvanas. We knew she wasout there, we had just seen her theatrical "You are all nothing!" Speech, which made it clear she was a future villain. And the Shadowlands was a definite location, even if they changed it massively.
When Sylvanas showed up in the trailer and opened the portal to the Shadowlands it made perfect sense based on the information we had at the time.

MoP to WoD was also a bit of a leap, but time travel does exist in WoW, and Garrosh was not killed at the end of the raid. The only thing that was a bit iffy was the location being old Draenor, but the plot made sense with the info players were aware of at the time.
And beyond that, we knew Old Draenor from Outland. So it wasn't a location we knew nothing about.


Avaloren being a place we don't know anything about is one thing. But its the fact that it's a place we have no reason to want to go to as well. It gives the impression that it's just hastily made up because the writers have nowhere else to go.

[Delever]

I wouldn’t really call it exact. The MoP > WoD scenario was an asspull, but Cata > MoP worked well (where the we discover a previously magically hidden island still makes sense, after the third time it doesn’t) and at least for BfA > SL we had the entire Sylvanas subplot the entire expansion (although it’s been terrible from the start).

And again I agree with you but these scenarios did not really hint at a specific location and both only became clear after the expansion announcement. Example: mop ended with garosh being taken for a trial. There was no indication whatsoever at that point that garosh would be escaping the trial and with the aid of a bronze dragon would open a time portal to OG draenor. Draenor is a known location of course but the plot leading there did not become clear until the expansion announcement and (sadly) the book about his trial. Similarly, going from bfa to sl, while I agree that there is the sylvanas subplot, most people did not know it was leading to shadowlands. Again shadowlands is a known location but her plot could have led anywhere. The last thing we see about sylvanas as loyalists is when she says goodbye to nathanos and thanks you for staying loyal. Where this could have gone was anyone's guess at that point and it ended up being the shadowlands. But nobody knew about the jailer or any of that shit. It was revealed after the expansion announcement.
For all we know, avaloren could be a titan homeworld and the titans might have been orchestrating something that somehow ties into the current events in a way that we can't think about currently. We have tyrs story for example. Also Iridikron disappearing into the void.
The only difference here is that avaloren is an original location and that is somehow tying up people's panties in a knot.

[locketto]

any black empire leak yet?

it is the one one I want

[Makorus]

MoP maybe. But BfA to SL made sene because of the connection to Sylvanas. We knew she wasout there, we had just seen her theatrical "You are all nothing!" Speech, which made it clear she was a future villain. And the Shadowlands was a definite location, even if they changed it massively.
When Sylvanas showed up in the trailer and opened the portal to the Shadowlands it made perfect sense based on the information we had at the time.

MoP to WoD was also a bit of a leap, but time travel does exist in WoW, and Garrosh was not killed at the end of the raid. The only thing that was a bit iffy was the location being old Draenor, but the plot made sense with the info players were aware of at the time.
And beyond that, we knew Old Draenor from Outland. So it wasn't a location we knew nothing about.


Avaloren being a place we don't know anything about is one thing. But its the fact that it's a place we have no reason to want to go to as well. It gives the impression that it's just hastily made up because the writers have nowhere else to go.

We didn't have a reason to go to the Broken Isles until Legion was announced. Then we knew why.

We didn't have a reason to go to Kul'tiras/Zandalar until BfA was announced. Then we knew why.

We definitely didn't have a reason to go to Old Draenor until WoD was announced. Then we knew why.

Honestly, the only good bridge so far has been Bfa -> Shadowlands, because you kinda could infer that.

[Marlamin]

Ok so basically how exactly would it have been possible for them to not retroactively build up going to a completely new area that we don't know about without spoiling the next expansion months in advance? This is all under the premise that they are now starting to develop areas that are new and we don't know about from previous lore.

I honestly don't think they always should build up something especially now they're running out of places to go, I'm sure there's possible narrative reasons for going somewhere new short term.

Like yeah, it has been precedent that they tease/introduce something beforehand ...but it seems silly to have that always be the requirement.