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

[Dracullus]

This thread is in dire need of some leak crumbs. They're bickering about Warcraft III now...

Over years people forgot these threads are for speculating about next expansion, not praying to get spoiled.

[Floot]

The problem is, the signal was: "we don't want dogshit written expansions that teach us we need peace and war is bad", but they understood as "players don't want faction war anymore"

Same way how the signal for shadowlands was also misunderstood

I could not agree more.

[Murlocos]

I am worried that Blizzard has so thoroughly poisoned the well that they buy into the request to all but remove the factions, because they wrote a terrible, miserable faction war where one faction committed laughably evil acts in service of one of the worst stories told by Blizzard. A faction war where it felt like half the focus was on maximizing civilian casualties instead of anything lighter. I worry that they believe that faction war always has to be full-blown existential struggle because that's what they wrote in BfA.

Giving up on the factions because of BfA is trying to give Blizzard a pass for their own awful writing that just sinks the setting even further. Maybe they should write better. I don't think the faction war should be the A plot again, but the way they've gone about it has been so bad that acting like the concept is the issue is giving so much undue praise to the writers.

[Moth Preacher]

I like how Blizzard clearly shown that they can't write nor faction war nor its consequences 2 times in a row and somehow people still want a new faction war (this time it will be different, trust me)

[FlemmMinis]

how many big trees we have 'currently' in Azeroth? 5? 6? with this anew?

"Five Keys, Five torches, five lanterns" ???? - burned trees?

what if every tree is a prison of an old God?
what if emerald dream is an 'network' between this trees
and
fyrakk gonna burn it/corrupt it/shadowflame it (u name it)
and free all big baddies

there was this artwork or cover of some book, where all old Gods looked like they were tangled in tree roots..

I still feel like the oathstones are the five torches

[Makorus]

The problem with faction war is that you cant do anything interesting with it?

It never makes sense in a setting like WoW. Remember the Ulduar cinematic? Yeah, embarassing. It makes sense to Garrosh/Thrall and Varian to ignore a problem like "Orc Zugzug didn't do his job right and now we are behind on boat production", but not "Ok, so there's this eldritch horror that is gonna kill us soon!".

[Floot]

I like how Blizzard clearly shown that they can't write nor faction war nor its consequences 2 times in a row and somehow people still want a new faction war (this time it will be different, trust me)

I feel like the current writers somehow would turn war into a story about "equality" and "inclusivity" ...

[Raetary]

The war between alliance and horde didn't end in RoC, it was a cease fire to deal with the legion, it got messier because the scourge participated, but the first, second war were all about horde x alliance, thus the third as well.

And yes, it indeed made the mmo unique, and beloved by the fanbase, since this was one of the differential pillars that made wow so great, with a sense of tribalism among the players

yeah no.

And if we want to jiggle this bs, this would the "fifth war" since horde and alliance were at war since vanilla, and people claimed it ended with Garrosh.

You are wrong.

The third war ended with the death of Archimonde and the defeat of the Legion at the Battle for Mt. Hyjal.
Afterwards the factions had a fragile truce that they kept breaking with skirmishes in Alterac, Arathi, Warsong Gulch (which was the lore justification for Battlegrounds),etc. but it was a canonical truce nontheless.

It wasn't until the Wrathgate that the factions were having an all out war again, the Alliance-Horde War, that lasted until the defeat of Garrosh in mop.

Then we had a fragile peace until Sylvanas started the fourth war in BfA.

[Syegfryed]

Thats what i meant. Faction War is okay, but only ifs well written and portrayed. Which wasnt BFA case at all.

Indeed, that was also ONE of the problems with BfA, as i said before, faction war works best as a sideline thing, background stuff, when you do sidequests that bump up worldbuilding, while there is a major antagonist to face.

This work perfectly in wtlk with alliance and horde fighting each other while fighting the lich king, and yet again in cataclysm while fighting the twilight cult.

It works so well, that people who didn't like it could just ignore and pretend in the forums those expansions didn't had any faction war shenanigans.

[Chickat]

Let's hope that 11.0 is not full of woke shit.

Not sure how you can have a TS avatar and call something woke. TS is "woke".

[Syegfryed]

You are wrong.

The third war ended with the death of Archimonde and the defeat of the Legion at the Battle for Mt. Hyjal.
Afterwards the factions had a fragile truce that they kept breaking with skirmishes in Alterac, Arathi, Warsong Gulch,etc. but it was a canonical truce nontheless.

It wasn't until the Wrathgate that the factions were having an all out war again, the Alliance-Horde War, that lasted until the defeat of Garrosh in mop.

Then we had a fragile peace until Sylvanas started the fourth war in BfA.

And again, if it was the case, BFa should have being the fifth war, not the fourth, because from wow to mop there was a war going on that fully escalated in mop.

[Chickat]

Other than the panels we already know of, are they going to add any others? Like ones where they go over the entire life story of devs and what not?

Theres room for 2 to 4 panels to be added after opening ceremony if they need.

[Shadowferal]

I seriously want to go back to smaller scale war stories and conflicts. We're never getting a proper ending to the Teldrassil crap, we're too deep in and the consequences are too severe for an MMORPG, but like, Gilneas is right there. Horde knows they aren't keeping it, but hell, it'll be fun to fight over it anyways.

I've ideas about Gilneas, and their current relationship with Night Elves, and though certain themes might have been co-opted by later material I'd say an unnamed forest zone could be a battle ground for battalions of werewolves (or better to say war-wolves) and more darker savage night elf legions.

[NikolaiShade]

I am worried that Blizzard has so thoroughly poisoned the well that they buy into the request to all but remove the factions, because they wrote a terrible, miserable faction war where one faction committed laughably evil acts in service of one of the worst stories told by Blizzard. A faction war where it felt like half the focus was on maximizing civilian casualties instead of anything lighter. I worry that they believe that faction war always has to be full-blown existential struggle because that's what they wrote in BfA.

Giving up on the factions because of BfA is trying to give Blizzard a pass for their own awful writing that just sinks the setting even further. Maybe they should write better. I don't think the faction war should be the A plot again, but the way they've gone about it has been so bad that acting like the concept is the issue is giving so much undue praise to the writers.

That is exatly what hppened, lorewise Sylvanas instigated the war to feed souls to the Maw.
On the matter of Blizzard giving up on the factions, I think the problem was that the Alliance player base was basically fading away. Simply during BfA they found out how few players still played Alliance, you remember the split Hall of Fame right?

[Amstrup]

I feel like the current writers somehow would turn war into a story about "equality" and "inclusivity" ...

They are already doing that.

Old racial traditions = BAD
Titans = evil colonizers and other forces just ''marginalized groups''
Etc

[Nyel]

Faction war makes no sense as long as Old Gods, Void Lords or other greater beings exist. Faction war works when it’s just about that and we don’t have to come together in the last patch of a faction war expansion to fight a bigger evil.

[Xilurm]

The Third War was the one against the Burning Legion in RoC.

That said, why is the Fourth War the one in BFA? The one Garrosh caused was arguably just as big, so what gives? And why are we skipping all the others too? The one against Arthas should've been the Fourth War. Then the literal World War that Garrosh caused should've been the Fifth. Then the one against the Legion should've been then Sixth. BFA's war is the Seventh, lmao.

[FiredOlive]

https: //twitter com/Thyst03/ status/1719546896916811834/ photo/2 second picture mean anything? I can't figure out what the world of warcraft title is

[Shadowferal]

Can we agree there can't be a winner in a faction war? So what's the meaning of this narrative? give reasons to the factions to hate and kill each other?

What do you have now? An apocalypse? What's the difference between now and all the others?

[Schwert]

The problem with faction war is that you cant do anything interesting with it?

Some people are immensely creatively bankrupt and can't come up with the most basic stuff for war stories.

We're literally sitting on two stories with massive potential.
You're telling me that Gilneas, Forsaken vs Worgen, can't be interesting? The dynamics within the Desolate Council differing, with a potential headbutting between Belmont and Calia over the return of Gilneas to the Alliance, isn't interesting? Werewolves vs Zombies isn't interesting or aesthetically cool af?
Lots of little things could happen with that scenario that are all very interesting. Genn potentially dying reclaiming his homeland? Tess taking over things? You know what's pretty dang close to Gilneas? Quel'thalas? Isn't that interesting?

And we're also sitting on the whole Void Elves vs Blood Elves thing too, which had a warfront seemingly in development at one point and scrapped in BFA.
There's a whole gaggle of elf exiles pissed off their country is with the Horde, and a ton of possibilities in regards to High Elves, Darkfallen, Void Elves, and Blood Elves all having a massive civil war and bringing the factions into it all.

But yeah, can't do anything interesting with it.