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

[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.

[Delever]

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.

You are confusing lore reasons to go somewhere vs what the players want. The fact that some players wanted pandas is undeniable and probably why Pandaria happened. What we knew about it lorewise to justify an entire expansion around it is just as good (if not worse) as what we know about avaloren.

[Echil46]

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 got the reason for going to Pandaria after we got there. We learned of the whole "Garrosh escaped into the alternate timeline" once we got there too. Same with Shadowlands. We had some vague idea about it, and that's it.
Avaloren, or anyother place that they magically pull out of nowhere can get its justification once we go there. For all we know the "mists have lifted" are as relevant to mop as "the storm has stopped raging" is to Avaloren.

I'm not saying it good tho. Just it wouldn't be impossible.

[Delever]

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.

What kind of information did we have that cracking open the helmet of domination would open a portal to the shadowlands? We have tyrs storyline now. What if in the next patch, Tyr reveals that he had some titan bs hidden in a landmass called avaloren and that's why we need to go there? That's as good a reason to go as "well actually sylvanas has been playing 5d chess with the jailer since she jumped from ICC and somehow cracking open the helmet of domination opens a portal to the shadowlands".

[Melorandor]

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?

Mix of Elementals, Titans(Order) and Void.

[Sondrelk]

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.

People want to go to K'aresh for some reason, and that zone originated from Netherstorm in TBC.

I would argue the problem isn't necessarily that it never existed before. Its that it was never brought up as a possibility of existing before.
Players were not aware it was a location they should look forward to in any way.

And Odyn talking about it isn't necessarily just about the players being made aware of it. It's so that the announcement can hold it up as an example of why the location makes sense.

[Hitei]

People want to go to K'aresh for some reason, and that zone originated from Netherstorm in TBC.

I would argue the problem isn't necessarily that it never existed before. Its that it was never brought up as a possibility of existing before.
Players were not aware it was a location they should look forward to in any way.

And Odyn talking about it isn't necessarily just about the players being made aware of it. It's so that the announcement can hold it up as an example of why the location makes sense.

This isn't true though. Players have speculated about and wanted to see what is on the other side of the planet for years. It's just that DF gave us an actual likely place name for what might be there.

[Mecheon]

What Tel Abim thing?

One of the books in Waking Shore that went on about all of Azeroth's pirates joining together under the Nightsquall, going out west to a lost island (which may or may not have been Avaloren) that no one else had ever been to and coming back, Tel Abim being covered in so much buried treasure the island's bigger than it used to be. It was the frontrunner for expansion idea until the No Pirates tweet came through

Basically think current Avaloren speculation plus the other south sea islands, so probably Tel Abim and Kezan (And whatever random ideas we can scrouge out from WC2 and WC3 maps, I reckon we can get like, Venetia to come back) as the last few places we've known about on Azeroth but haven't explored. But, No Pirates pretty much clipped that one

By all means, give me the story reasons for us to venture to Avaloren and deal with Odyn’s heretics….

'Kay

"It has come to light that the formerly sealed continent of Avaloren has, following the destruction of the Nexus War and Cataclysm, ended up the center of Azeroth's re-directed leylines (which we knew had some Issues in Legion thanks to Azsuna). As such, various powers run amuck through the world as the World Soul herself prepares to emerge. Hungry forces foreign to Azeroth seek to claim their individual stake in this matter, with Odyn specifically sending us over to try and enforce the Titan's will upon a nascant world soul and eliminate his enemies, claiming they are a threat to what Azeroth should be and blaming them on this world-wide confluence and destruction. But, do any of them truly have the world's best interest in heart, or are they blinded by their own ambition?"

Ties in with this expansion's theme of 'yeah maybe Titans not good', gives excuses for everyone from Xal to Denathrius to show up. Even have some stuff like a fallen star falling from the sky (the fallen star is a new old god or something to cause their own breed of problems but not as dug in as our regulars.)

[Sondrelk]

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.

In all of those cases there was something the announcement could point to as the reason why you should be excited.

For Broken Shore it was that the Legion was there.

Conversely in BfA you should be excited to go to the location because it's an iconic location, and the reason why we go there was secondary.

Same with WoD. The location is the exciting part, and the reason is just fluff.


Avaloren and Khaz Algar has neither. It's not an iconic location that players should be excited about, and there doesn't seem to be a plotline leading us there that we should be excited about either. The Titan Keeper rebellion stuff maybe, but that has not been set up in game yet, and won't have been by the time the expansion is announced.

[Makorus]

In all of those cases there was something the announcement could point to as the reason why you should be excited.

For Broken Shore it was that the Legion was there.

Conversely in BfA you should be excited to go to the location because it's an iconic location, and the reason why we go there was secondary.

Same with WoD. The location is the exciting part, and the reason is just fluff.


Avaloren and Khaz Algar has neither. It's not an iconic location that players should be excited about, and there doesn't seem to be a plotline leading us there that we should be excited about either. The Titan Keeper rebellion stuff maybe, but that has not been set up in game yet, and won't have been by the time the expansion is announced.

There is nothing yet because the expansion hasn't been announced yet.

[Delever]

In all of those cases there was something the announcement could point to as the reason why you should be excited.

For Broken Shore it was that the Legion was there.

Conversely in BfA you should be excited to go to the location because it's an iconic location, and the reason why we go there was secondary.

Same with WoD. The location is the exciting part, and the reason is just fluff.


Avaloren and Khaz Algar has neither. It's not an iconic location that players should be excited about, and there doesn't seem to be a plotline leading us there that we should be excited about either. The Titan Keeper rebellion stuff maybe, but that has not been set up in game yet, and won't have been by the time the expansion is announced.

You are using very reductionist arguments to say why it's not exciting for you. Titans are things that people are excited over. People wanted to see what's on the other side of azeroth and have speculated for years. It has just finally been given a name. The reason to go there, just like most expansions, will probably be revealed in the trailer and will very likely tie to something that has already happened.

[Mace]

Not exactly. His leak came before (Oct 18th) the zone screenshots (Oct 26th) and didn't give names for any of the zones. He just kind of accidentally got a few details kinda-sorta right.

The website leak came out on Oct 11th.

He just added the most likely points from a bunch of leaks that could correlate with the leak" pics going around and added one or two things of his own that are fairly predictable and plausible - like dracthyr having other classes.

[Hitei]

In all of those cases there was something the announcement could point to as the reason why you should be excited.

For Broken Shore it was that the Legion was there.

This is a bit disingenuous as a presentation of events.

The Legion was only on the Broken Isles after they announced Legion and suddenly there was a giant sky portal above the broken shore to give a reason to be excited about going there. You can't argue hypothetical Alvaloren doesn't have that reason now, before we know what that reason might be.

Prior to BfA the Broken Shore was a mostly sunken bit of ruins on a handful of tiny rocks in the ocean.

[Xilurm]

I meant before the announcement, of course….

Well it's going to get better in a few days.

[Sondrelk]

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.

I would argue that every announcement needs a big hook. Something for the announcers to point to and say "be excited for this".
Usually this is either the location being exciting, like BfA or WoD. Or the plot being exciting, like Legion.

Avaloren and Khaz Algar currently has neither. The best they can do is make it look pretty and go from there.
It doesn't have narrative buildup for the location, or why we should go there. It doesn't have any known characters to build around.

The best reason I saw to go there is a colonization plotline where the Alliance and Horde are looking for new places to settle, though even that would make much more sense after some buildup, which means a world revamp.

[Mace]

new demon hunter spec is torment. dont look like support but not sure.
all race given shamans.
lands of conflicts are updated revamp like cata and textures
khaz algar new lands underground black stormy skybox and titan buildings opening hole in EK but go very deeper down to the center
new races in algar but customization for a lot of races. noticed no water races for algar. looks like might be a new patch for vashjir
new glyphs revamped new system like talent trees but in depth changes spells not power relating
small tree for races not power relating

@Arafal I like his leak the best, obviously fake, but I like it.

[Sondrelk]

This isn't true though. Players have speculated about and wanted to see what is on the other side of the planet for years. It's just that DF gave us an actual likely place name for what might be there.

I think the problem is that it's the weakest of justifications. There are probably loads of islands in WoW we have not heard about, but it would still be a weird choice if we just got a random one as an expansion.

We still need that tiny bit of buildup to have the location make sense.

[Jaggler]

This isn't true though. Players have speculated about and wanted to see what is on the other side of the planet for years. It's just that DF gave us an actual likely place name for what might be there.

This.

People always speculated about the "other side of Azeroth". Now the other side has a name, but that's an issue lol.

[Sondrelk]

This is a bit disingenuous as a presentation of events.

The Legion was only on the Broken Isles after they announced Legion and suddenly there was a giant sky portal above the broken shore to give a reason to be excited about going there. You can't argue hypothetical Alvaloren doesn't have that reason now, before we know what that reason might be.

Prior to BfA the Broken Shore was a mostly sunken bit of ruins on a handful of tiny rocks in the ocean.

I suppose this is true. Though even Legion had the buildup with the end of WoD.

Iridikron being on Avaloren seems a bit weak as a hook to me.

[Marlamin]

I would argue that every announcement needs a big hook. Something for the announcers to point to and say "be excited for this".
Usually this is either the location being exciting, like BfA or WoD. Or the plot being exciting, like Legion.

I agree, but I also think all that hooking could be done during an announcement trailer. It doesn't necessarily have to have been set up in-game already.