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

[Mizue]

I'm more of a fan of the two head ogre april fools joke being made real:
"By selecting the Two-headed Ogre race, you are selflessly choosing to share your existence in World of Warcraft with another player. That is, you are staking claim to one half of the Ogre whole. As a Two-headed Ogre, you will have control of one head and one arm at all times. Your other half will be controlled by a second player automatically and permanently paired with you upon character creation. Each player residing in the Ogre body will be free to choose his or her own character class at creation, so for example, it is possible to have a Two-headed Ogre who is half Mage and half Warrior. It is also possible to have two halves of the same character class, depending on the random pairing. Two-headed Ogres serve the Horde, and in keeping with the theme of their inherent duality, their starting zone will be located near the Crossroads, which resides in the Barrens region of Kalimdor. The classes available to Two-headed Ogres are: Mage, Warrior, Priest, Druid, and Warlock. Sharing a single body with another player can produce an mutually enlightening, symbiotic relationship or a constricting, insanely frustrating experience depending on the player you are randomly matched with. Good luck to you! "

[Hitei]

The difference between these images and the big OGs is that none of them are close up, all of these are extremely dark, which WoW is notoriously bad at, and other than the Dragon in the one daylight image, no models are shown and the dragon looks...off.

Now I know you only worked on this for a bit, but I highly doubt an ai model could convincingly make that many close up models shots with other real objects and have it be AI.

None of the models need to be AI, or in engine, that's my point.

An image like the not-dwarf can take an AI picture of a canyon, drop in a handful of models that have been photoshopped (a dwarf statue, the eagle, the gryphon, a torch, a bush, the earthen the cat), and it reads like being in-engine despite just being regular 2D photoshopping. You'll note that all of the OG pictures are distinctly 'straight on'. This makes it even easier to just slap in models. If I'd been say, a machinima artist with WMV downloaded, I could have also just set the AI pictures as a background and spun the models around on top of it to very easily exactly line them up, much like how an actual machinima is made.

What I'm trying to show in picture form is that the AI can handle the actually difficult work (making a new looking area of terrain that seems like it's in-engine and from WoW) and then the rest is just sitting down and adding stuff at your leisure.

[Ersula]

If they can’t confirm it, it’s not going to happen. We had the exact same thing going on with 9.2.

You must be thinking of 9.1 because they were explicitly clear that zereth mortis was the last major patch of Shadowlands. "I can neither confirm or deny an additional major patch" historically means "yes, there will be another major patch" for a wow expansion.

[Imotbh]

We already had the Bolvar leak by this time before Blizzcon 2019 so I wonder if there hasn't been any real leak this time around or if we actually have the right one but don't know that's it. When did the 4-picture leak appear for the 1st time? (Asking about this one because it's the most convincing one for now imo.)

[Dismayxz]

None of the models need to be AI, or in engine, that's my point.

An image like the not-dwarf can take an AI picture of a canyon, drop in a handful of models that have been photoshopped (a dwarf statue, the eagle, the gryphon, a torch, a bush, the earthen the cat), and it reads like being in-engine despite just being regular 2D photoshopping. You'll note that all of the OG pictures are distinctly 'straight on'. This makes it even easier to just slap in models. If I'd been say, a machinima artist with WMV downloaded, I could have also just set the AI pictures as a background and spun the models around on top of it to very easily exactly line them up, much like how an actual machinima is made.

What I'm trying to show in picture form is that the AI can handle the actually difficult work (making a new looking area of terrain that seems like it's in-engine and from WoW) and then the rest is just sitting down and adding stuff at your leisure.

I feel like the point Paula is glossing over is your time investment. I personally wouldn't say these look very wow-ish at all, besides the one that kind of has that dwarven roost and the storm drake (?). The fidelity across most of them imo is a lot more defined (uprezzed?) compared to what I'd get logging into the actual Game and looking at a place with absolutely everything at it's best quality. That's not present in the original 4, but like you said, it doesn't have to be, because somebody putting in a little more work or working it smarter not harder due to strict experience could do that.

Your set of 4 honestly, like with the one of the coastal settlement we got, looks more like a "What if Riot made a WoW Zone in 2023"? I can't see the whole data set because the link goes to a 404 imgur page for me.

[Revamp Man]

I have repeated myself over and over in this thread and the thread with the original images.

If they are fake the person(s) who made them are genius. But I doubt they are fake.

Wasn't there a Twitter thread where some machinima creator went off about it being completely fake and linked parts in the pics to in game assets

[Luck4]

We already had the Bolvar leak by this time before Blizzcon 2019 so I wonder if there hasn't been any real leak this time around or if we actually have the right one but don't know that's it.

We most likely already have one, but it's so bad (insert reason here) that people refused it. Something that didn't happen with the Shadowlands Bolvar or Dragonflight Alextrasza leaks.

You can also blame A.I.

[Revamp Man]

You must be thinking of 9.1 because they were explicitly clear that zereth mortis was the last major patch of Shadowlands. "I can neither confirm or deny an additional major patch" historically means "yes, there will be another major patch" for a wow expansion.

But they also called 10.1.7 a major patch

[Dismayxz]

Wasn't there a Twitter thread where some machinima creator went off about it being completely fake and linked parts in the pics to in game assets

They did, found a bunch of direct hits on assets, ignored others, got some references wrong and then proceeded to double post about how the rocks in one of the pictures are nowhere to be found and have to be new/custom, making them doubt their entire reference work.

[Revamp Man]

We most likely already have one, but it's so bad that people refused it. Something that didn't happen with the Shadowlands Bolvar or Dragonflight Alextrasza leaks.

You can also blame A.I.

People doubted both of those

We had posters claiming bolivar armor was messy and the logo for dragonflies was obviously photo shopped

[Hitei]

I feel like the point Paula is glossing over is your time investment. I personally wouldn't say these look very wow-ish at all, besides the one that kind of has that dwarven roost and the storm drake (?). The fidelity across most of them imo is a lot more defined (uprezzed?) compared to what I'd get logging into the actual Game and looking at a place with absolutely everything at it's best quality. That's not present in the original 4, but like you said, it doesn't have to be, because somebody putting in a little more work or working it smarter not harder due to strict experience could do that.

Your set of 4 honestly, like with the one of the coastal settlement we got, looks more like a "What if Riot made a WoW Zone in 2023"? I can't see the whole data set because the link goes to a 404 imgur page for me.

Spoiler: 

[JMitchy96]

Wasn't there a Twitter thread where some machinima creator went off about it being completely fake and linked parts in the pics to in game assets

Yes, ObviouslyZelris on Twitter did a great deconstruction of each of the images from that (those) leak(s). Basically, every single asset shown in those images is (made from) an already existing asset. The only object they couldn’t identify was a rock, which could easily have been created in photoshop or a model/texture editor.

[Vakir]

how DARE I have hope something similar happens.

I bring it up because Cataclysm did have the world revamp hitting before the 80-85 content and there was a lot to do.

[Nize]

I feel that Hamilton's answer was more about story after 10.2, which we're definitely bound to see a 10.2.5 patch with more story added, as well as setup for next expansion. But I don't see another raid tier. They're definitely treating the defense of the Emerald Dream as the final patch in many regards. Gameplay-wise, we have history use of Aotc mount and perma-rune. Story-wise, all the dragonflights and npcs are joining together in defense of the Emerald Dream for one giant fight, feeling like a climax to the end.

[Dnusha]

01 user banned or deleted his account

It's over for Satyr bros.

[matijwow]

It's over for Satyr bros.

Never a sadder day, and it's not even Saturday.

[Luck4]

People doubted both of those

We had posters claiming bolivar armor was messy and the logo for dragonflies was obviously photo shopped

Yeah, also the "blue eyes" on Bolvar and the blurry Alextrasza pic, but these were not even close to the degree we're seeing now. Also, the discussion was mixed with many people getting hyped. Something that also didn't happen this time.

Anyway, I'm hyped for Classic+.

[Paula Deen]

Yes, ObviouslyZelris on Twitter did a great deconstruction of each of the images from that (those) leak(s). Basically, every single asset shown in those images is (made from) an already existing asset. The only object they couldn’t identify was a rock, which could easily have been created in photoshop or a model/texture editor.

"Every single asset" kek it was like 3-7 things per image give or take a few and then the Twitter User had a Schizo Melt Down when they realized there was also original assets mixed in....which would mean the work is just like how Blizzard has been operating since...idk? MoP? Don't confuse my stance as one of utmost confidence. I am 50/50 on real or fake but if it is fake I think thats more impressive than if its real. The only leak so good the Mods themselves attached a poll to it and even that is neck and neck.

[Hitei]

"Every single asset" kek it was like 3-7 things per image give or take a few and then the Twitter User had a Schizo Melt Down when they realized there was also original assets mixed in....which would mean the work is just like how Blizzard has been operating since...idk? MoP? Don't confuse my stance as one of utmost confidence. I am 50/50 on real or fake but if it is fake I think thats more impressive than if its real. The only leak so good the Mods themselves attached a poll to it and even that is neck and neck.

No, mods attached a poll to it because a random user made an entire separate thread to have a poll about it, so they closed that thread and just added the poll to the existing one.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

I mean Vahsj'ir worked just fine, people just weren't used to mostly underwater combat, which.. surprise surprise, is a little more dimensional than just doing everything at ground level and thus makes a lot of ground effects really, REALLY awkward when you fight things above ground height instead of pulling them down to ground height. Vashj'ir, realistically speaking, was functional enough if you just applied basic logic to any form of combat down there, people just.. couldn't be arsed to do that and small self-solveable issues got blown out of proportions. Vashj'ir is still probably the reason Nazjatar went down the way it did, even though it would've been insane to get the zone we did get, just actually under water. The open ocean above the ruins of the city with it's wide alleys, the darkness in the lower Naga shelf near the big statue and the tunnel to the Eternal Palace.

The only valid reason for Vashj'ir sucking that goes beyond just subjectivity is.. frankly, that people with thalassophobia exist and that'd just .. suck a whole lot, depending on severity. Ultimately the zone was fine, it just closed a lot of doors for future similar stuff for very very few reasons.

I really like Vashj'ir; the story, the music and the overall atmosphere - but it would get old very fast to have an entire expansion based under water. Vashj'ir was only one zone and you didn't really have to go there for max level content.