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

[Nuami]

Stopped lurking, is this the part where I create a bunch of leak bullet points and leave a riddle in binary? I could also generate some AI images if that would help. Just learning the initiation ritual here.

[Ersula]

Your entire premise is they somehow deliver an entire content patch with a full raid in May or so and then do a full alpha and beta cycle before the end of the year and that is something they have NEVER done. The closest we've gotten is 9.3 to 10.0 and there's no way this tier is over in February.

Considering how short 10.2's ptr cycle was, they could absolutely do this. Although I don't think they would need to. Have you noticed that WoW now has 2 completely separate public testing servers since Shadowlands season 4? And the internal Alpha is always happening while they're working on the final major patch of an expansion; it just isn't the public phase yet.

10.2.5 is already on the ptr vendor, so its about a week away.
10.2.5 release & 10.2.7 on the ptr late January/early February
10.2.7 release & 10.3 on the ptr late March/early April, just like the patch cadence of 2023
If they skip 10.3.5 the beta can start as soon as 10.3 is out. That gives them 5 months of 11.0 beta for a November release

Are we forgetting the Dragonflight Beta was less than 2 months long? (September 1st beta beings, October 25th 10.0 released)

think we may even see Christ Metzen go up on stage and say, "We're trying something new, our expansion cycle will be 12/16/18 months between releases" because they haven't been able to keep up the old 4 raids in an expansion for 4 years now.

It's only been 3 years since BFA

[milkmustache]

Really interesting we haven't seen anything from media leak yet. Guess blizzard have kept a tight ship so far.

Don't speak so soon; those leaks were always most likely to spill within the days closest to Blizzcon; so tomorrow, Thursday, or day of.

But you're right, everything (aside from the screenshot claim) has just been text writeups.

[Chickat]

If you're saying it's equally as likely that the next expansion comes out in August 2024, as it would come out in February 2025, you're correct. That's why November 2024 is most likely because it's the median & average. And that happens to be the 20th anniversary & so the advertising writes itself.

Making a whole full season 4 is not plausible. They need the man power for 11.0. I think 3 seasons and fated is here to stay. Especially if they keep the content cadence that they have been.

[TylerCarlsen]

There was a planned zone in Cataclysm called the Abyssal Maw, home of the water elementals. If it's SoA, I think Abyss is a very strong contender. Something like Song of the Abyss, Shadows of Abyss, The Shattered Abyss, etc...

"To keep Azeroth safe from these threats, the titans imprisoned the Old Gods underground and banished the savage elementals to the titan-constructed Elemental Plane, a secure dominion where the elementals could dwell without harming Azeroth."

[Chickat]

They would lose so so so many subs with 6 months of fated hell.

Not as many as it they had a year long draught like in the past.

[Leowyld]

Stopped lurking, is this the part where I create a bunch of leak bullet points and leave a riddle in binary? I could also generate some AI images if that would help. Just learning the initiation ritual here.

Lurking? If you combined all your posts across all your accounts, you might have more than me.

[Vakir]

If we want to go filler content, why not do a fated raid from a previous expansion? Like timewalking but balanced a bit more tightly

That was a given. Trying to be creative here. But that's likely what's to happen.

[Nuami]

Lurking? If you combined all your posts across all your accounts, you might have more than me.

I promise i'm not the shadow wizard spamming leaks. I just like reading the expansion speculation threads!

[Baraden]

If we are getting old april fools made real, I demand the wisps!

Christ the image size alone carbon dates this one

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

People that say having an expansion completely underground or like a dome in the water are so boring and have the same lack of imagination as Blizzard seems to have when it comes to having certain themes for an expansion.

A giant underground dome with its own skybox and many, many tunnels, passages, etc would be cool. Could even connect it to Undermine and a Nerubian kingdom to create even more variety in scenery and skyboxes.

Going to Nazjatar(for real this time) would be amazing. Just gotta come up with some silly excuse(Blizzard looooves those) for it to not be completely under water. Either that we - the Horde and the Alliance use some spell to remove/push away the water(already done; so stupid that this was used for a patch in BfA) so we can deal with the naga/Azshara ones and for all, or the naga are working together with some different races or void beings so they removed the water so they could be down in Nazjatar without any issues.

[Edoll]

Lurking? If you combined all your posts across all your accounts, you might have more than me.

You so quickly accuse people of being alt accounts I’m starting to believe you’re behind all the fake leaks and bickering.

[JMitchy96]

But yeah, in my theory 10.3 also exists. Here are all my reasons why I think there will be a 10.3

• With the exception of WoD, all WoW's final major patch have come out after the expansion is at least 12 months old. 10.2 is coming out before Dragonflight's 1 year anniversary.
• 10.2 is not the climax to Dragonflight's story. "They can add that in 10.2.5" they add epilogue content after the raid. The actual climax of the expansion is always the raid & the story of 10.2 has nothing to do with Alexstrasza or Tyr, the actual narrative throughlines of this expansion.
• Dragonflight's raids have been smaller (number of encounters) than Shadowlands raids.
• And internal development was a lot more hectic during Shadowlands than it is now.

As much as I’d love this to be true, I think it’s much more likely that the original plans for 10.3 were simply scrapped due to the issues going on at blizzard during DF’s development. I hope I’m wrong!

[Izalla]

So we ready to start making our bingo cards yet?

[Leowyld]

You so quickly accuse people of being alt accounts I’m starting to believe you’re behind all the fake leaks and bickering.

It's just been a repeated pattern all week and I have low tolerance for BS or for those who trick others. Never had another account and have used this name wherever I can online since the '90's.

If I did a leak, it would be one, it would thorough and methodical - I am a perfectionist. But the aforementioned low tolerance for BS and distaste for deceiving people would make the entire experience nothing but miserable for me. If I want attention I'll earn it with this account, thank you.

[Calfredd]

They must be destroyed immediately, before their power can be unleashed.

I agree, we should ban all of these leak accounts.

[Ersula]

As much as I’d love this to be true, I think it’s much more likely that the original plans for 10.3 were simply scrapped due to the issues going on at blizzard during DF’s development. I hope I’m wrong!

What issues? That was a shadowlands thing. The massive departures happened the same time as covid.

Everyone's saying no 10.3 simply because Shadowlands didn't have one. Dragonflight & BFA were normal expansions. Shadowlands was the outlier here.

10.2 is very much the climax of Dragonflights story, wot?

We'll see what Tyr has to say about that when he wakes up.

[flan1337]

Holy shit, bard leak actually real?

this is actually more of a possibility if they bring back guitar hero but blizzard is too scared! Do it blizz!

[Nuami]

Whilst I agree it's likely an underground expansion I just hope not all of it is underground..that'd get bland pretty quickly. If I had to guess it'd be a mix of overworld/underground using the seamless loading tech they have for Zaralek.

That's what i'm hoping to see. Normal zones with massive interesting things beneath them. Id be surprised if there isn't some kind of underground stuff regardless of what the theme ends up being.

[Zankai27]

Artificer is basically the only DnD class that wow hasn't made yet and Holly Longdale is the executive producer of WoW who is into that stuff so I could see if it it wasn't for evokers having just come out.

Bard is the other iirc