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

[Xilurm]

Do you all think that Old Anduin comic is set during Midnight or The Last Titan?

No. I REALLY doubt we'll defeat the void completely in Midnight. That makes zero sense. They could very well save this kind of arc for like 10-20 years in the future.

[Puupi]

So are the Earthen an allied race instead of a regular race because they reuse the dwarf model and Blizz knows they would be shit on for calling that a new race? Or because they plan to add a few different ones through the expac and allied race is code for "not a full race but not the only one you'll get"?

Allied race because you need to encounter them first, grind rep to them etc. and then unlock aka ally them. Unlike a new race that just pops up as playable from the get go, like Dracthyr.

[Ersula]

They said we're going to Quel'Thalas. Not also Lordaeron and Alterac and the Wetlands. And that's inferring there aren't completely new zones with it.

No but if they're smart they'll set the major patch zones there.

[Cheezits]

I can see the Northrend revamp just being this portion.



ICC has uncomfortable baggage and unless they use the bottom of it for Iridikron's lair they may not want to touch it. Borean Tundra is classic but probably too irrelevant.

Sholozar... coinflip.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Do you all think that Old Anduin comic is set during Midnight or The Last Titan?

Metzen: "You will make your stand with the forces of the Light and banish the shadow forever!".

Anduin is old when he leads the final battle against the shadow. He will be old in Midnight.

[Xilurm]

Wonder if this means the Quel'Thalas part of the map of EK will be changed drastically. Maybe we'll get the zone that's behind Stratholme. Do you think Stratholme will be revamped and repurposed too?

[Kiivar86]

No. I REALLY doubt we'll defeat the void completely in Midnight. That makes zero sense. They could very well save this kind of arc for like 10-20 years in the future.

Honestly I think its a bad idea to permanently defeat anything, when it comes to these primordial forces. Those behind it, sure, but it still needs to exist in some form.

Because somewhere down the line you'll want to bring them back and go "well actually you see you didn't really kill them all." See the Legion, for example.

[Ersula]

Judging from the cinematic, I suspect that there's some remnant of his soul left inside of Anduin right now. He had a flashback of Terenas's words from the WotLK cinematic and immediately did Arthas's iconic stance. I don't know where they're planning to go with that, but that didn't seem to come from just the PTSD.

It wasn't Arthas' hand in the cutscene. It was Varian. It was a reference to is Sepulcher cutscene.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I can see the Northrend revamp just being this portion.



ICC has uncomfortable baggage and unless they use the bottom of it for Iridikron's lair they may not want to touch it. Borean Tundra is classic but probably too irrelevant.

I think the Last Titan zones will be Storm Peaks with Ulduar as the new city, and then we will get new original zones like the heart of Azeroth or Titan spacestations.

[Xilurm]

Honestly I think its a bad idea to permanently defeat anything, when it comes to these primordial forces. Those behind it, sure, but it still needs to exist in some form.

Because somewhere down the line you'll want to bring them back and go "well actually you see you didn't really kill them all." See the Legion, for example.

That's why it's a good idea to leave it for the future, when the time comes to put WoW to rest.

[Vakir]

No but if they're smart they'll set the major patch zones there.

It depends on whether it makes sense to set major patch zones there. Lordaeron, maybe, but Alterac and the Wetlands are like C or D-tier zones in terms of relevancy to big-stakes stuff.

And again, Blizzard is more inclined to make new shit to be there for their own pace to manipulate. There are tons of logical locations in past expansions that we didn't go to in favor of something completely different because they could tweak it from the ground up.

They are also, frequently, not smart.

Metzen: "You will make your stand with the forces of the Light and banish the shadow forever!".

Anduin is old when he leads the final battle against the shadow. He will be old in Midnight.

They already said this was "one potential future" because it kills all tension.

You've been told this like 3-4 times and you ignore it every time.

[Cheezits]

Remember it's elf tribes including Night Elves. So maybe they will hold on building the new Nelf city, even if the tree crosses over in 10.2, until 12.0 and have it be a new zone with quests?

Maybe housing for Silvermoon and Amirdrassil?

[Ersula]

Remember it's elf tribes including Night Elves. So maybe they will hold on building the new Nelf city, even if the tree crosses over in 10.2, until 12.0 and have it be a new zone with quests?

I assumed the zone as it is will just be transposed into the material plane. Then Amirdrassil is as close to Silvermoon as Lordaeron is.

It depends on whether it makes sense to set major patch zones there. Lordaeron, maybe, but Alterac and the Wetlands are like C or D-tier zones in terms of relevancy to big-stakes stuff.

In my original post I was implying the southern Half of EK & the Northern Half of Kalimdor would be the setting of whatever comes after the worldsoul saga. And then they're done with the revamp.

[pacotaco]

Everytime they add a race or class it adds more work for them in future expansions. Every new race requires more armor fitting time. Every new class adds balancing time. Its not sustainable to add those things every expansion anymore.

You talk like they added classes at neck-breaking pace. They've added 4 extra classes in 20 years! 4! In 20years! Do you actually think that's a lot?!

[Izalla]

Why do people assume this would be the case? Couldnt it be more like the difference between Dragonriding races, and Dragonriding challenge races? In both cases you have no issues staying aloft, just that in one you move significantly faster.

The way I imagine Dragonriding should look is less about never being able to do anything, and more so that you look out over a zone, see a whole bunch of options for fast movement, and your skill determines whether you go the standard, slightly boring way. Or the more challenging, but much faster and more visually interesting way.

Sure, dragons should be able to stay flying for a good while. But on the other hand, when my warrior does a whatever amazingly strong swing of his preposterously large sword I should logically slice arms off easily. Or leave my opponent crippled. But since that would be less interesting to look at and play you accept the gameplay aspect of the game.

See I would hate that because I don't want that stuff all over my screen looking more like a game than a world. I want the world to feel like a world as much as it can. I can hide names above people's heads and make my UI as minimalist and small as possible but I wouldn't be able to hide all the randomly placed flight crap hanging in the air. It's fine during races because races are a mini game, but I wouldn't want those filling up my zones all the time.

Also I've literally never in all my time playing this expac noticed how someone else is flying. I don't care how good someone else is at flying, it has nothing to do with me. I just want to enjoy my own experience and my experience has nothing to do with hoping other people can tell I'm above average at it. I just want to fly and zoom and have fun.

And I say all that as someone who has deliberately not bought flying on alts I was leveling until literally forced to by Cataclysm zone design because I like the immersion of running on the ground on a horse or whatever when I choose to as well.

[Cheezits]

I assumed the zone as it is will just be transposed into the material plane.

The tree is too small to be habitable, so I assume it would change significantly when it moves into reality.

[Vakir]

I assumed the zone as it is will just be transposed into the material plane. Then Amirdrassil is as close to Silvermoon as Lordaeron is.
In my original post I was implying the southern Half of EK & the Northern Half of Kalimdor would be the setting of whatever comes after the worldsoul saga. And then they're done with the revamp.

But you usually need to have the setting be in service to the concept, not vice-versa.

There's no guarantee of that. Unless, of course, 14.0 or 15.0 is designed to be a full questing post-saga reboot. But that'd be a lot to update those two AND then restructure everything to take place after.

See I would hate that because I don't want that stuff all over my screen looking more like a game than a world. I want the world to feel like a world as much as it can. I can hide names above people's heads and make my UI as minimalist and small as possible but I wouldn't be able to hide all the randomly placed flight crap hanging in the air. It's fine during races because races are a mini game, but I wouldn't want those filling up my zones all the time.

Also I've literally never in all my time playing this expac noticed how someone else is flying. I don't care how good someone else is at flying, it has nothing to do with me. I just want to enjoy my own experience and my experience has nothing to do with hoping other people can tell I'm above average at it. I just want to fly and zoom and have fun.

Can confirm, the gryphon is cool in GW2 if you want to show off your expertise purely for the sake of ego, but it doesn't necessarily work in a game like WoW that has a lot more content density per square meter and has a ton of emphasis on instanced content on top of it.

GW2 is a game about stopping every so often to do an extended event on the ground and/or using gusts with your glider to sometimes elevate around that event.

In WoW you're zipping around doing shit every 3 seconds if you're picking up every collectible and killing every rare possible.

You talk like they added classes at neck-breaking pace. They've added 4 extra classes in 20 years! 4! In 20years! Do you actually think that's a lot?!

The time between Death Knights and Monks was 4 years (and 1 expansion), between Monks and Demon Hunters was 4 years (and 1 expansion), and between Demon Hunters and Evoker was 6 (and 2 expansions).

The interim expansions with no classes added 1-2 new races (or fully updated almost all the races in WoD's case) except for BFA's reskins (and new rigs for Zandalari males and Kul Tirans) and SL's absolutely fucking nothing (customization additions being minor).

Really the moral is that the one two punch of BFA and SL around the pandemic was a super dark time for the game.

[Cheezits]

I do wonder if they were tone deaf with the Nerubians and it's just a coincidence they are giving them a humanoid form. Maybe they really didn't plan on them being playable, similar to Sethrak.

But after Dracthyr armor changes, unsure. The fact that they are the first raid means they can be made playable fairly quickly after launch content ends.

[Zaelsino]

Do you all think that Old Anduin comic is set during Midnight or The Last Titan?

Neither. I'm pretty sure they relegated it to "only one possible future" years ago and have no intention of ever making good on that panel. It's the Blizzard classic: never commit, always leave the door open for that quiet retcon.

[Vakir]

Neither. I'm pretty sure they relegated it to "only one possible future" years ago and have no intention of ever making good on that panel. It's the Blizzard classic: never commit, always leave the door open for that quiet retcon.

Val: "That post won't stop me because I can't read!"