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

[Hugnomo]

It might be a little too optimistic for this forum, but regardless of what the next expansion is, WoW's dev team always manages to sell me on them, even if the themes, at face value, don't particularly interest me. A South Seas expansion, at face value, doesn't really excite me. But I don't know anything about Avaloren, about what "lies beyond the waves" of Kalimdor, etc. It's totally new lore so they can go whatever direction they want. That prospect for me is super exciting, there's something really cool about a complete surprise, since we've grown used to having a very clear idea of what expansions were going to look like based on warcraft 3.

Personaly, my idea for it would be:
- Considering that the known Azeroth continents have been ordered by the titans and are deeply influenced by them, what would a continent look like where the void civilizations managed to thrive? Could we get a glimpse into a void society that dispells titan propaganda? Humanizing and exploring perspectives from stereotypical fantasy monsters has been a staple of Warcraft.
Could we get Naga or K'thir playable races considering Azshara is coming back into the fold? I mean Maritime expansion and Azshara/Naga definitely go together (even though we already had that in BFA). And I mean, the vanilla dragon isles that were never released was a huge octopus old god temple. That theme wasn't tapped in dragonflight, so maybe in the next one? Also, this could be an opportunity to meet an Ogre empire that formed in these continents after their crossing into Azeroth, they're a seafaring people after all.

- The idea of a new type of naval mount that revolutionizes movement like dragon riding could be amazing. I absolutely loved to just sail about in Zelda Wind Waker, finding treasures and islands. Could even customize our ship like dragon customization.

- Meeting unkown Old Gods like Xal's true form. Meeting void lords.

And regardless of expansion, a concept I'd like to see is class skins, a little bit like echo fighters in smash bros. A concept that, gameplay wise, maintains the same number of classes, since creating and balancing new classes is a huge endeavor. But allows for more diverse class fantasies, even new ones, to exist. For example, I feel like druids could definitely be a base for a tinker skin, with robotic "forms" for the different specializations. And it'd be a cool way to give druids to races like gnomes and goblins.
I'd love to see new spell effects, new spell names, etc.
This could be used to bring us:
- Shadowhunters;
- Dark rangers;
- Night warriors;
- Witch doctors;
- Bards;
- Sunwalkers;
- Necromancer;
- Tinker;
- Warden;
- Blademaster;

And I'm sure there's more!
I don't know, I love wow's spell animations and effects. It'd be so cool to have the ability to play these specific classes, at least aesthetics wise.

[Nightshade711]

And regardless of expansion, a concept I'd like to see is class skins, a little bit like echo fighters in smash bros. A concept that, gameplay wise, maintains the same number of classes, since creating and balancing new classes is a huge endeavor. But allows for more diverse class fantasies, even new ones, to exist. For example, I feel like druids could definitely be a base for a tinker skin, with robotic "forms" for the different specializations. And it'd be a cool way to give druids to races like gnomes and goblins.
I'd love to see new spell effects, new spell names, etc.
This could be used to bring us:
- Shadowhunters;
- Dark rangers;
- Night warriors;
- Witch doctors;
- Bards;
- Sunwalkers;
- Necromancer;
- Tinker;
- Warden;
- Blademaster;

And I'm sure there's more!
I don't know, I love wow's spell animations and effects. It'd be so cool to have the ability to play these specific classes, at least aesthetics wise.

I like the idea of class skins, but Tinkers being a Druid skin would be a little bit of a stretch imo.

[huth]

Dread Admiral Nightsquall is building a large pirate fleet that now also contains the Irontide who showed up in Forbidden Reach bringing with them more Tel Abim/banana (omg old fake leak confirmed) references. South Seas expansion? Dragonriding tech but sailing? Hmm!

My vote is sky islands with sky pirates and "Dragon"riding with sky-sailing ships. Zero sense, all fun.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

My vote is sky islands with sky pirates and "Dragon"riding with sky-sailing ships. Zero sense, all fun.

Sounds absurd..... so long it feels like WoW. Sure why not.



*Still salty about no underground expansion*

[MKG]

Thats 100% true. Everything else is good idea

[huth]

Sounds absurd..... so long it feels like WoW. Sure why not.

I'd go with a framing story akin to those three guys in the Badlands in Cataclysm (i.e. technically the expansion starts after all of it happened, with your character possibly not entirely sober, relating its events to Relevant Lore Character X). If a little less clear on whether we actually did any of that stuff. And of course you get to keep all the mounts and Dragonsailing ships.

[Black Rider]

Pretty much. There's so many hooks/teases in Dragonflight that are worth delving into yet we still seem to spiral into some obscure/irrelevant topic with a few people (and usually the same ones) going back and forth. Lore discussion should be limited to story speculation on a surface level of future patches/expansions without going into long tangents about deep WoW history (or even more irrelevant stuff like opinions on character sexualities/romances, wth).

In case people forgot;



Here's some currently ongoing speculation relevant to the thread;

• Are we getting the questline that leads to the leaked PTR cinematic after next reset/with the start of season 2?
• 10.1.5 PTR is being actively prepared and could hit as soon as next week.
• Dragonflight is apparently around to stay; how are they going to solve compatibility with older zones/mounts?
• New zone names that popped up in Dragonflight; Khaz Algar, Avaloren.
• How the teased future patch content (Evil Chromie, Muruzond, Galakrond) could fit in a larger storyline and maybe, if Rokman's speculation ends up correct, even cause time-travel shenanigans between mainline WoW/classic and maybe even a change of the post-classic timeline?
• Dread Admiral Nightsquall is building a large pirate fleet that now also contains the Irontide who showed up in Forbidden Reach bringing with them more Tel Abim/banana (omg old fake leak confirmed) references. South Seas expansion? Dragonriding tech but sailing? Hmm!

...and I'm sure there's more stuff that I can't recall right now that I missed in that list.

And remember, if you feel like all of these have already been discussed enough, it's also okay NOT to post if there's nothing new to dive into.

New zone names that popped up in Dragonflight; Khaz Algar, Avaloren. - are these classified as zones? Or it could be small part of the zone, like Crossroad for The Barrens.
Yay for the pirate themes

[Alanar]

This.

It’s frustrating to come into this thread, seeing a few new pages of discussion and getting excited to see discussion and speculation on upcoming content and instead you’re met with discussion about romance in the story, mainly past romances.

Guys take it to the Lore sub-forum ffs, it’s getting very tiresome now.

The actual talking points of speculation for upcoming content such as Avaloren, revamped roles, future Aspects etc has largely been ignored the past few pages (aside from a couple of responses) in favour for discussing irrelevant shit once again.

Agree, we usually see the same people go back and forth.
Its getting annoying I agree.

Back to speculation.

[Marlamin]

New zone names that popped up in Dragonflight; Khaz Algar, Avaloren. - are these classified as zones? Or it could be small part of the zone, like Crossroad for The Barrens.
Yay for the pirate themes

Yeah, probably better named as "areas" as zones implies a certain size. I do feel like they both 'sound' like zone sized areas.

[Black Rider]

Yeah, probably better named as "areas" as zones implies a certain size. I do feel like they both 'sound' like zone sized areas.

Cool.
Thanks!
Any dungeon hints in DF files?

[Marlamin]

Cool.
Thanks!
Any dungeon hints in DF files?

Not sure, I haven't checked. I'm sure someone would have picked it up by now if there were, though.

[Hugnomo]

I like the idea of class skins, but Tinkers being a Druid skin would be a little bit of a stretch imo.

I mean I get that. It's just, the way I imagine it, the base class itself just means numbers and gameplay. Everything else from spell effects, character animations, spell icons, spell names, talent names, form models, etc would be changed. So because I've always envisioned a tinker as a class with many roles (tank, dps, healer) and with different forms (using some sort of robot vehicles like Mekkatorque or a tech outfit like Gazlowe), I went with druid. I don't see it as an extension of the base class, but as an opportunity to create completely new class fantasies. If we were expanding pre existing classes with new specs or something, tinker would probably be better using hunter or rogues I guess. But my idea wasn't in that direction.

Maybe it'd be difficult to reinterpret something like balance with tinker, because mechanically it plays by balancing two types of spells. Maybe something like balancing goblin and gnome engineering ? ahaha idk

[huth]

Yeah, probably better named as "areas" as zones implies a certain size. I do feel like they both 'sound' like zone sized areas.

Avaloren could easily be a new continent as well, though. Khaz Algar sounds more like a zone.

[Murlocos]

With regards to retrofitting old mounts to Dragonriding, if it comes down to it I don't see why they couldn't just forgo any new animation work and just apply the mechanics and flying SFX. Maybe adding those animations in could be a longer term animation project, but I don't think they'd want designing unique animations for niche mounts like the profession ones to be their sole roadblock for this implementation.

[huth]

I like the idea of class skins, but Tinkers being a Druid skin would be a little bit of a stretch imo.

I can see the lore connection issue, but (game) mechanically i can see how they'd fit. Though i think something like Thorncallers and other race based specialisations would work better. They already do it on a form level anyway.

However, it seems Blizzard is neither interested in nor fully grasping the concept, so i wouldn't get to invested.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Avaloren could easily be a new continent as well, though. Khaz Algar sounds more like a zone.

Agreed, Avaloren has more of either a .3 zone or continent vibe to it. I think it will either be the Zereth Mortis of DF, or 11.0 at this point.

[Hugnomo]

I must have missed it, but where did Khaz Algar and Avaloren mention in Dragonflight?

In the books that drop from the Uldaman dungeon.

[huth]

In the books that drop from the Uldaman dungeon.

More specificially, Avaloren was mentioned in an after-action report of a failed attempt to invade it. Which according to the report was a rather common outcome.

[Foreign Exchange Ztudent]

I don't think any of the hints left in 10.0.7 and 10.0 were for anything but setting up later expansions.

Obviously, its' hard to tell with the emergence of the possibility that all the time travel shenanigans is settled in the Megadungeon. But, again we see what the Megadungeon is next week and that will at least alleviate a lot of the current issues about knowing what trajectory and where we are going next is.

I'm going to be honest, currently there's no real clarity on the narrative which is kind of cool and feels fresh coming from this franchise. So I am not complaining that there isn't clarity in the present.

Obviously the Raid Cinematic can also do something in terms of moving us in a direction too. But, I think its more centralized storyline than anything like a void pivot.

[Berkilak]

I much prefer the lack of a centralized narrative in MMOs. It makes them feel like actual worlds with different things going on within them rather than a manifested design space that only exists to service the narrative. I would love to see more expansions that focus on exploring the world rather than hinging all their bets on a single story.