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

[Chickat]

Soooooo .... void-corrupted worldtree-roots, confirmed??

Also, gryphonriders in the background.

Maybe we will go into the underground to save Azeroth. We put the world tree fire out and we thought we won. That was never the goal. Once the tree manifests into Azeroth the shadow part of the shadowflame will start spreading ajd reaching down into Azeroth. We have to go underground to fight the void.

If Teriz was right the whole time we will never live it down.

[Syphin33]

I think stable diffusion + LoRA trained on a 2-3 dozen screenshots of a zone in game (per image) would output decent enough results. The issue with a general model is that it tries to be landscape-y and is pulling from concept art.

The asset involvement aso allows for hiding potentially off spots. For example (not even arguing this is evidence of AI, just that this is an example of how it could be done):

Spoiler: 

This mountain in the background weirdly goes from being jagged on the right to a strange curved drop off on the left. But if you slap a pine tree in front of it like this, that sort of feature basically disappears.

Between this artifacting on these trees and the weird resolution blur happening on these horns:



My gut feeling is that a good bit of this has been layered in 2D onto the image of the zone, rather than done in a sandbox. This also makes it easier to do the impression of spell effects, because you don't have to make custom ones, you can just add a bit a color to a flat image at low resolution:

Didn't you all do this same detective work on that leaked dracthyr leaked picture that came out to be true, you all picked it apart for days.

[Ferlion]

I hope Blizzard learned from DF cinematic experience and wont make 11.0 one with no-name or little known characters.

I think people think these cinematics are easier to pull of than they are in reality.

I've said this before. Metzen left Blizzard 2016. The Saurfang cinematic was the last thing he worked on. That was 2018.

Blizzard can learn all they want from DF cinematic, and it won't mean a single thing for whatever is done now.

[Polybius]

Well that's not the problem imo. I think Shadowlands cinematic was the worst of all, even tho it had known characters, while MoP had no/not really known characters and it's one of my favourites.

The problem with DF cinematic was that there was too much running and climbing -> nothing really happened in it, we just saw a really stressed stone man trying to achieve smth.

SL's cinematic was actually cool. The only reason it got flack is because the average viewer doesn't know Bolvar has no access to Frostmourne, and Arthas' martial experience and callousness. Top that off with the hindsight of SL's story being a solid turd.

[Woggmer]

Honestly, given how expansils seem to be seeded I would very much think a revamp is imminent now, simply because it was talked about at the end of SL. Similarly to how DF was talked about at the end of BfA, and the Shadowlands and its connection to Argus was briefly touched upon at the end of Legion.

I am hoping so... but I wouldn't be shocked if they did something else completely different to throw everyone off their guard.

To put it this way, I'm hoping that there is a revamp, that it will go into greater detail about the Primalists and the Elementals having another effect on the world resulting in a revamp in a similar way to Cata (minus deliberately destroying previous content)

But the worst I'm expecting is another location to the west of Kalimdor... a place that the Titans didn't know about.. and filled with more bland looking environments than DF's. (The harpy and dwarf NPCs don't bother me as much)

[Chickat]

this got debunked?

Thats a really cool logo.

[Jaggler]

After Blizzcon i don't want to hear the word build-up for at least another 2 years. It's wearing out its welcome lol

[Harbour]

Well that's not the problem imo. I think Shadowlands cinematic was the worst of all, even tho it had known characters, while MoP had no/not really known characters and it's one of my favourites.

The problem with DF cinematic was that there was too much running and climbing -> nothing really happened in it, we just saw a really stressed stone man trying to achieve smth.

This really comes down to execution. There are
well executed cinematics with unknown characters (Pandaria/Classc/TBC),
well executed cinematics with known characters (WoD,WotLK, Legion, BFA, Cata),
badly executed cinematic with known characters (SL),
badly executed cinematic with unknown characters (DF).

Id rather 11.0 cinematic to be of the second type.

[Marlamin]

Thats a really cool logo.

Protip on embedded imgur images, you can add a s or m to the image filename (before the .jpg) to get a thumbnail of it that stretches the page a bit less.

[Chickat]

I agree. I threw some related things into DALL-E and I'm definitely a bit suspicious, especially with the blur.

So we think thats fake now?

[Polybius]

The big bad of Shadowlands should have been Mueh'zala. At least he had some build-up.

Too many missed opportunities. This is why I now mostly cling to transmogs and dungeons over lore. WoW's story has become its own bootleg version, almost indistinguishable from Runes of Magic and the like. Thankfully some of us have played enough games to know what's good.

[ZyntosAran]

So we think thats fake now?

Thats AI generated.

[milkmustache]

After Blizzcon i don't want to hear the word build-up for at least another 2 years. It's wearing out its welcome lol

Don't worry, we'll talk about world revamp instead!

[Pheraz]

My DF cinematic experience was like:
- The world is healing!
- Who asked?
- Dragons will be protectors of Azeroth once more!
- Who asked?
- The age of the Dragons
- Whoa, really, who asked?

Alexstrasza's whole speech seemed disconnected from any plot lol

So you don't remember the woooooooounds? Those were healing ofc :P
Yeah, on a serious node, it was kind of obvious that it won't get any more cosmic after zereth mortis for the "moment". Though something more back to earth was the general consensus I guess. But no one asked for this specific "trapped in dragon soap opera land" expansion for sure. Dragons? Yeah sure, let em burn things, let them lure us into their caves to get eaten alive. But re-live their soap opera moments or past lovers? nooooo thanks.

[Harbour]

I think people think these cinematics are easier to pull of than they are in reality.

I've said this before. Metzen left Blizzard 2016. The Saurfang cinematic was the last thing he worked on. That was 2018.

Blizzard can learn all they want from DF cinematic, and it won't mean a single thing for whatever is done now.

Carpenter left Blizzard in 2016 as well. He was the guy who directed all WoW and SC2 cinematics, and afaik WoD one was his last one. It really shows, since in my opinion WoD cinematic directing wise and technlogy wise still blows every single later WoW cinematics out of the water.

[Krakerz]

Since there hasn't yet been a 100% verifiable leak like a website or a trademark, here's my prediction:

World of Warcraft: Emerald Breach

Eons ago at what is now know as Khaz'Algar, the veil between the Dream and our world was weakened by Aman'Thul ripping out Elun'Ahir from the world.

When Fyrakk sliced open a path between our world and the Emerald Dream, it caused the Dream to become unstable, cracking at the seams and leaking into our world.

Old wounds are reopened and a part of the Emerald Dream bursts into Azeroth at Khaz Algar, creating a new landmass that is a twisted mix of what is there now, what was once there before the Sundering, and the untouched, wild nature of the Dream.

Zones include:
-Bottom of the ocean forced up to the surface and now kept alive by the power of the Dream, giant corals, sharp cliffs, ancient shipwrecks, outerworldly
-A massive jungle with impossible, winding tree shapes
-An ancient underground cavern now cracked open and exposed to the sun, with the roots of Elun'Ahir starting to grow once again

WoD had a Burning Legion patch leading up to a whole Burning Legion expansion, why not again?

[Sondrelk]

SL's cinematic was actually cool. The only reason it got flack is because the average viewer doesn't know Bolvar has no access to Frostmourne, and Arthas' martial experience and callousness. Top that off with the hindsight of SL's story being a solid turd.

I still standby that trailer being an easy top three pick for its use of colour, and how it tells a simple story that leads us very naturally into the next expansion.

[kavikor]

So we think thats fake now?

Look at the center of that image two of the people is literally shaped like an Among Us and the other is a blob whose limb becomes a cat

[Chickat]

Huge if real, best leak of the season so far

Blizzard heard we wanted CATaclysm.

[ercarp]

Carpenter left Blizzard in 2016 as well. He was the guy who directed all WoW and SC2 cinematics, and afaik WoD one was his last one. It really shows, since in my opinion WoD cinematic directing wise and technlogy wise still blows every single later WoW cinematics out of the water.

WoD had probably the most hype cinematic ever. It somehow managed to pull even the most jaded players back into the game after they had sworn to never come back. Just look how high the subscriber numbers went at the start of WoD.

At the time it really felt like the promised "we going back to the Warcraft roots" expansion. It sucks that it didn't deliver on that.