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

[Scyth]

I'd withdraw my comments if Fyrakk ends up immediately torching the tree.

Would be the ultimate f.ck you by blizzard to nelf players if it happened. Imagine Fyrakk just drops down from the sky immediately as Alexstrasza finishes her speach lol

[Hitei]

You gotta be kidding right?

I'm not kidding. You are confusing map distance with actual distance. Teldrassil was planted way off the coast of the middle of nowhere. Hyjal isn't a sprawling night elven capital, especially post-Third War* when the tree was in some flux state of pseudo-death, which is when the second tree was planted.

The closest thing to teldrassil were small town ruins that had not been cared about or used for literally 10,000 years. It's "next to" those places on the interactable map, when the reality is that between Darkshore and Hyjal is an insurmountable series of truly massive mountain peaks and an entire region lost to fel corruption. How is that close to Hyjal? To actually go between the two, properly, in terms of lore or moving supplies, you'd need to travel the entire length of darkshore, through Ashenvale, through the entirety of Felwood, negotiate past the Furbolgs of Timbermaw Hold, get through the snow of Winterspring and then you are at the foot of Hyjal and can climb it.

Yes, Ashenvale is "a zone over", except when you actually consider the distance implied there and realize that Ashenvale, a glorified outpost and constant battleground since the WoTA, is still on the other side of an entire region of forest, two sets of mountains and through more forest.



Teldrassil is the middle of nowhere. There's no rhyme or reason to its placement. It's barely even near those ancient ruins. It's on the other side of the continent from where most of the Night Elven army is stationed. It's probably weeks+ travel from Hyjal proper unless you are a single person on a flying animal.

Teldrassil is way down the road from Ashenvale, a place which itself was more of a tactical retreat from demons than a meaningful choice of location. So what does it matter if the new tree is off in the Isles instead of on Kalimdor, the continent that the Night Elves were struggling to retain meaningful control over even when they weren't a handful of refugees?

[loras]

I'd withdraw my comments if Fyrakk ends up immediately torching the tree.

The prospect pf this made me giggle.

[Pheraz]

My problem with it being on dragon isles (how sure are you people that it's really being on dragon isles?) is that blizzard Abaddons landmasses the moment the prepatch of the next X-Pac hits. Why can't they properly integrate old land into the current content? This really puzzles me and it's also very inefficient and wasteful in terms of real money

[Hellspawn]

I'm not a fan that they put the tree on the Dragon Isle. What purpose does it serve there?
As people said before, Nelfs got zero connection to this place. Regardless of that, Nelfs need some stuff going on back on Kalimdor, the tree could have been a good starting point.

[Super Dickmann]

I wouldn't put it completely past Blizzard to pull a Merithra-Ysera with it mind, where every plot point screams towards one outcome (Ysera returns, becomes Aspect) but due to complaints they shelve it and are left with a weird in-between situation. In this case, the tree being in the Dream serving as an excuse for them to pivot it over to Kalimdor or onto its own map as a daily quest hub.

[Shadowferal]

As s hopeless night elf nerd I can confirm this would be bad. But you know what's much worse? This somehow lowers the hope for a world remake since in my head a world remake makes all races and zones relevant again. And with world I mean classic/cata zones

I too wanted a do-over; the lore rewritten so it makes sense, independent factions to balance the horde/alliance metric, racial spec-abilities, a wider scope of classes, and a lot more...

I'd withdraw my comments if Fyrakk ends up immediately torching the tree.

Well, Blizz may need to show off the aspects protecting it...so don't be surprised if this attempt happens.

[Nymrohd]

I wouldn't put it completely past Blizzard to pull a Merithra-Ysera with it mind, where every plot point screams towards one outcome (Ysera returns, becomes Aspect) but due to complaints they shelve it and are left with a weird in-between situation. In this case, the tree being in the Dream serving as an excuse for them to pivot it over to Kalimdor or onto its own map as a daily quest hub.

Was the seed planted in the Ancient Bough area in Ohn'ahran Plains or was it planted in the Dreamway?
They could place it in the Dreamway and give Night Elves a Capital they can reach from every Great Tree which would link them to Hyjal, Ashenvale but also Grizzly Hills, Feralas, Hinterlands and Duskwood (and a few other places the Dreamway links to).

Though the truly Blizzard thing to do to the NElfs is not to have Fyrakk burn it; that's just a troll move that's hilarious and they don't manage that. Nah it would be for Vyranoth or Fyrakk to somehow compromise the Dream and the Elves to sacrifice the seed to save the Dream from collapsing.

[Skildar]

what it feels to me is that they're trying to rebrand the night elves into night fae elves. We'll see where all this goes but I wouldn't find it to be a bad thing

[Nymrohd]

what it feels to me is that they're trying to rebrand the night elves into night fae elves. We'll see where all this goes but I wouldn't find it to be a bad thing

Given they never delivered WC3 Night Elves in WoW, they might as well.

[Super Dickmann]

Was the seed planted in the Ancient Bough area in Ohn'ahran Plains or was it planted in the Dreamway?
They could place it in the Dreamway and give Night Elves a Capital they can reach from every Great Tree which would link them to Hyjal, Ashenvale but also Grizzly Hills, Feralas, Hinterlands and Duskwood (and a few other places the Dreamway links to).

This would actually be fairly cool and feed into future story opportunities. This on the other hand...

Though the truly Blizzard thing to do to the NElfs is not to have Fyrakk burn it; that's just a troll move that's hilarious and they don't manage that. Nah it would be for Vyranoth or Fyrakk to somehow compromise the Dream and the Elves to sacrifice the seed to save the Dream from collapsing.

Where did you find a copy of the script?

[Luck4]

Teldrassil is way down the road from Ashenvale, a place which itself was more of a tactical retreat from demons than a meaningful choice of location. So what does it matter if the new tree is off in the Isles instead of on Kalimdor, the continent that the Night Elves were struggling to retain meaningful control over even when they weren't a handful of refugees?

Please stop...

After the Sundering of the ancient Kalimdor, the night elven civilization was built in and around the forests of Ashenvale.

Ashenvale, also known as Ashenvale Forest, is a wilderness region south of Darkshore and Felwood, west of Azshara, and north of the Stonetalon Mountains and the Barrens. It is the ancestral homeland of the night elves, who remain in control of several holdings through the zone, including Astranaar, Maestra's Post, Silverwing Grove, and the Shrine of Aessina.

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ashenvale?so=search

So what does it matter if the new tree is off in the Isles instead of on Kalimdor, the continent that the Night Elves were struggling to retain meaningful control over even when they weren't a handful of refugees?

Gameplay-wise it shows favoritism towards the Horde as the Undead resettles in Tirisfal Glades, their former home, and lore-wise makes even less sense since the Night Elves took back Darkshore and are currently settled in Nordrassil (Mount Hyjal).

So it does matter a lot!

[Fahrad Wagner]

what it feels to me is that they're trying to rebrand the night elves into night fae elves. We'll see where all this goes but I wouldn't find it to be a bad thing

I'm under the same impression. I still hope they won't plant the tree in the Dragon Isles but I'm pretty sure they will

[Shadowferal]

A slap in the face to night elf players...

[Nymrohd]

This would actually be fairly cool and feed into future story opportunities. This on the other hand...


Where did you find a copy of the script?

My Danuser voodoo doll speaks to me when I dream ofc.

Suddenly though I can see Fyrakk burning the tree while the Benny Hill theme is playing. And it's glorious.

[Sondrelk]

A slap in the face to night elf players...

At least this time Nelves get a stiff drink to help stomach the slap. So improvements i guess?

It's undeniably lazy to place the new Nelf capital in the Dragon Isles. But I am going to withhold my worst judgment here until I see what they actually end up doing with the new tree. It might be cool enough that I am willing to let it slide. And if we get some dreamway portals into the mix to integrate it into other Nelf settlements on Kalimdor then I would argue it would probably be among the most convenient capitals regardless.

[Lady Atia]

As someone that once wanted an Emerald Dream expansion, yeah, after Shadowlands I completely rejected the idea. Also, the characters that I wanted to see from the Emerald Dream are either dead or already appeared in Azeroth.

I'm really glad that 10.0 turned out to be Dragons Isles instead of Gardens of Life/Lifelands/Emerald Dream.

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But as someone said above, I wouldn't mind Cosmic plane exploration on patches.

Cataclysm used a similar approach to explore the elemental planes: Firelands(Raid+Patch Zone), Skywall(Dungeon+Raid), Deepholm(Zone+Dungeon), and Abyssal Maw(Dungeon+Canceled Raid/Dungeon).

And Cataclysm felt weak as they literally cut half of the elemental planes from the lineup - the same fuckup they did with Ny'alotha. These things should always be playable zones, not just Dungeons or raids. MMO Champion may shit on Shadowlands but it was far superior to cutting stuff short and making things only available via instanced content (which was especially bad with the Abyssal Maw lol). Even Argus was kinda wasted potential as they could have easily added f.e. Kil'Jaeden's palace as another raid. Actually, I'm convinced that Argus may have been originally a smaller (yearly) expansion like WoD which got changed into patch content during Legion's development in order to get more content out for Legion once they realized that yearly ones weren't doable, alongside with feedback on WoD's Orc fatigue after SoO.

[Shadowferal]

At least this time Nelves get a stiff drink to help stomach the slap. So improvements i guess?

It's undeniably lazy to place the new Nelf capital in the Dragon Isles. But I am going to withhold my worst judgment here until I see what they actually end up doing with the new tree. It might be cool enough that I am willing to let it slide. And if we get some dreamway portals into the mix to integrate it into other Nelf settlements on Kalimdor then I would argue it would probably be among the most convenient capitals regardless.

As long as those portals are strictly "Alliance Only." Unless Blizz really has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and decided NElfs have to embrace forgiveness to the undead...

[Sondrelk]

And Cataclysm felt weak as they literally cut half of the elemental planes from the lineup - the same fuckup they did with Ny'alotha. These things should always be playable zones, not just Dungeons or raids. MMO Champion may shit on Shadowlands but it was far superior to cutting stuff short and making things only available via instanced content (which was especially bad with the Abyssal Maw lol). Even Argus was kinda wasted potential as they could have easily added f.e. Kil'Jaeden's palace as another raid. Actually, I'm convinced that Argus may have been originally a smaller (yearly) expansion like WoD which got changed into patch content during Legion's development in order to get more content out for Legion once they realized that yearly ones weren't doable, alongside with feedback on WoD's Orc fatigue after SoO.

You say they cut half the elemental planes. But really the only one we didn't properly see was the Abyssal Maw. And Vashj'ir already did most of what would be interesting with an underwater area anyways.
And though the Air Elemental place was just a dungeon I fel like we got the general gist of the place plenty.

Also wasn't Antorus supposed to be where Kil'jaedens palace was anyways? We just didn't see his actual throneroom.
I would have liked to see more of Argus for sure, but only really in the sense that I wanted to see more of Mac'aree/Eredath. I could do with much less of the generic green and black hellscape (felscape?). Which makes having more of Argus kinda difficult. Maybe in an ideal world where 7.2 was a bigger Eredath, and 7.3 was Antoran Wastes and the interior of some less green and black palace.

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As long as those portals are strictly "Alliance Only." Unless Blizz really has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and decided NElfs have to embrace forgiveness to the undead...

If I were to guess what something like this would look like, then I would say that only Nelves get to use it anyways.

[Nymrohd]

You say they cut half the elemental planes. But really the only one we didn't properly see was the Abyssal Maw. And Vashj'ir already did most of what would be interesting with an underwater area anyways.
And though the Air Elemental place was just a dungeon I fel like we got the general gist of the place plenty.

Also wasn't Antorus supposed to be where Kil'jaedens palace was anyways? We just didn't see his actual throneroom.
I would have liked to see more of Argus for sure, but only really in the sense that I wanted to see more of Mac'aree/Eredath. I could do with much less of the generic green and black hellscape (felscape?). Which makes having more of Argus kinda difficult. Maybe in an ideal world where 7.2 was a bigger Eredath, and 7.3 was Antoran Wastes and the interior of some less green and black palace.

I say that Skywall was a massive miss. It has some of the most beautiful architecture in Warcraft and it was limited to ONE dungeon (and one of the easier ones, I think we did the Vortex achievements in one try compared to the horror that was Siamat) and a tiny raid at a time when the game was entirely raid or die. Heck most people did not even bother doing Throne more than once for the simple reason that the gear there was crap; I know as soon as Al died on HC we didn't return.

And on the Eredar side in general I felt Argus was a miss. There was no Eredar capital on the planet. Antorus was entirely a military facility. I really was hoping for something more Sargerai inspired; not green and black but rather red, gold and black.