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

[Gwynvael]

The Train hungers!

Ragnaros putting Smolderon in the trashcan. 10/10

[NikolaiShade]

Personally, I'm slightly suspicious about this being a next expansion hint:

Could very well not be honestly. There are a couple strange things though: the voidy elf in the portal with Iridikron could very well be xal; there was that book about the Harbinger; the earthens of Khaz Algar were sent to investigate a fissure and were "mutated".

In the picture you get: azerite sword/daggers and a staff all voidy called "Voidsong, Stave of the Harbinger".

in dragonflight the last whisper of N'zoth is

Knowing Presence whispers: Her dreams sing beneath the surface. Our dreams. Our song.

[Magistrate]

Void expansion is inevitable.

Xal'atath is the Void Harbinger and N'Zoth faked his death in BfA as he knew the strength of the players before-hand (confirmed in DF Time-travel questline).

The last Trading post item all but confirms it.

11.0 is about Void Invasion and the Void elves of the Alliance will play a major role, like the Illidari did during Legion Invasion.

Nzoth doesn't need to have faked his death...? He's just in the little butter knife.

The void may have a part in the next expansion, but an item from the trading post is not some 5d chess move to telegram it. We have heaps of void stuff in this entire current expac.

[Murlocos]

In one of the pre-release interviews Ion grouped vanilla-MoP as the period of the game where expansions continually built on what came before. They thought that this was not going to be tenable to scale up forever (and also likely spooked by sub decline in Cata and MoP), so they switched to the WoD-SL model of expansions largely having standalone feature sets. We saw how that ended up, and I'd have to find the interview again, but I believe Ion said DF was the return to their old philosophy (as opposed to something totally new).

Borrowed power became a major component of what people called the systems expansions, but it's not the end all be all. Having new systems that can improve and iterate throughout expansions is important, but it's also important that those systems are well-realized enough on the first attempt. They can't afford to launch hot messes and pray that the underlying design is solid enough to attempt salvaging anymore. A bad system or piece of content is little better than having nothing there at all; both don't encourage someone to want to log on and play.

The discussion around the game has been dominated so much by the quantity of content or lack thereof for ages now that 11.0, for me, is going to be a litmus test of whether they can provide the appropriate quality now that they've done their apparent housecleaning with DF. They can't just commit to the same formula ad nauseam out of fear of failure from trying something new.

[Harbour]

Okay, hype is reluctantly back. Ill take Void invasion over Avaloren quite easily.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Me right now, realising this might be the one leak, and it's better than ever, filling myself with hopium before I completely deflate when they announce an Avaloren expansion

[NikolaiShade]

Nzoth doesn't need to have faked his death...? He's just in the little butter knife.

or he let some of his power sip in the dagger for Xal to use

[Fahrad Wagner]

This years Hypetrain is a work of art

Arafal is kind of our Michelangelo

[taishar68]

back? did we ever go anywhere? we've always been around, lurking in the shadows, in the corners of the devs' eyes

I doooo but I like being in and out of the front of the hype train, gives me this SPEC THREAD HIGHHHH





Plotting, scheming... preparing Her return

You guys should do a podcast. "Something Wet Under The Sink", with your hosts, Shadochi & Fahrad. On this weeks show, we break down that photo from page 1973, pixel by pixel, plus, a special AITA segment featuring our top shitposters. Brought to you by Liquid Plumber.

[Nymrohd]

Ehh, AI I think is fine. It's annoying when it's blatant, but it's sometimes fun to pick apart whether something is an AI artifact, or actually just weird looking.

It really was the Algarian Stormrider that killed it. Because it both meant that Khaz Algar was all but hard confirmed, and Khaz Algar was a location we knew basically nothing about.
In one fell swoop it basically killed speculation for a World Revamp, South Seas exploration, and for that matter the Backside of Azeroth, since it now seemed like Titan Keeper rebellion with Earthen seemed to be inevitable.

Leak season seemed just fine until the achievement list got confirmed.

See, here is my issue. Khaz Algar doesn't have to be a continent. It could be an unexplored area close to an area we have long known and seek to explore. It could be a shallow water area in the South Seas that is part of full or partial EK revamp or part of a South Seas expac together with Kezan and Tel'abim. It could be an underground area that is part of a underground expac, be it with joined underground areas in a pseudocontinent or in a more ambitious hollow world expac.

[NikolaiShade]

Okay, hype is reluctantly back. Ill take Void invasion over Avaloren quite easily.

The two things were never mutually exclusive at least for me

[Harbour]

There is no need for Nzoth for 11.0 to be an exciting Void related expansion. Actually, screw Nzoth. Welcome our Void Overlords.

[kavikor]

Me right now, realising this might be the one leak, and it's better than ever, filling myself with hopium before I completely deflate when they announce an Avaloren expansion

I do find the images more believable than the Trading Post possible hints so far, but it's definitely better than another text-based leak.

[Woggmer]

I always wonder what it could be...sound cool

As I recall, it was supposed to be a system similar to Glyphs, but it was heavily tethered to Archaeology...

But it was scrapped because it looked too much like the Glyph system, so instead they scrapped it to focus on the actual glyph system (which would soon die out by Legion)

Now they just use them for cosmetic purposes.

[Magistrate]

or he let some of his power sip in the dagger for Zal to use

The knife is a prison. I don't see why he would have this much agency in the terms of how it works.

If anything I would assume xalatath would extract such power for herself and her ends.

- - - Updated - - -

As I recall, it was supposed to be a system similar to Glyphs, but it was heavily tethered to Archaeology...

But it was scrapped because it looked too much like the Glyph system, so instead they scrapped it to focus on the actual glyph system (which would soon die out by Legion)

Now they just use them for cosmetic purposes.

Wrath to Legion is not "soon" but it was definitely effectively dead before Legion.

[taishar68]

The knife is a prison. I don't see why he would have this much agency in the terms of how it works.

If anything I would assume xalatath would extract such power for herself and her ends.

Xal always reminds me of the dagger Mat took from Mashadar in the Wheel of Time, which eventually fell into the hands of Padan Fain. I never read the last three books so his ultimate fate is lost to me.

[Nyel]

As I recall, it was supposed to be a system similar to Glyphs, but it was heavily tethered to Archaeology...

But it was scrapped because it looked too much like the Glyph system, so instead they scrapped it to focus on the actual glyph system (which would soon die out by Legion)

Now they just use them for cosmetic purposes.

I would love them to rework Archaelogy as a profession and then make it part of something like Path of Titans were we go over the world, dig out old stuff and therefore get stronger or improve our character in other areas.

Wasn’t an Archeology revamp in the works anyway?

[Varodoc]

I wonder if this could also lead into a Broken playable race that was hinted at since they're so closely tied to Sargeras and the Void corruption?

The Broken were more tied to Kil'jaeden/Archimonde, since they were the betrayers of the Eredar who sold their people to the Legion.

Sargeras didn't really do anything to the Broken aside from planting seeds of doubt/fascination in Kil'jaeden and Archimonde.

In terms of the Void, the Broken are incapable of controlling the Void and are easily enslaved by it.

The Void elves of the Alliance are the only ones who controlled the whispers and actively fought against them.

[D4NNYB0Y]

Was the Khaz Algar ASCII translated to binary translated to "Prison of Khaz" leak discussed? Possibly an underground OG/void prison?

[Northelim]

I'll give my 2 cents: Just come arround Pre-Blizzcon(That will announce XPAC) and have some fun with the more chill guys that still lurk arround.

I'll be too busy for that. I am going to be AT Blizzcon playing the expansion and interviewing devs. (I work in the industry)