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

[Pheraz]

This one?



A dev said it's just a mockup (in response to people pointing out the drac'thyr with leather armour and a dagger). The elf has fire in her hands and the vulpera hunter is wearing leather armour. So I wouldn't look into it too much.

Sure, but why would they explicitly put a blood elf in there and tag them alliance? The only explanation I could see is a designer not familiar with WoW. Totally possible as designers often just have no clue about the context.

[Jekyll]

This one?



A dev said it's just a mockup (in response to people pointing out the drac'thyr with leather armour and a dagger). The elf has fire in her hands and the vulpera hunter is wearing leather armour. So I wouldn't look into it too much.

My fav part of the warthin UI is that you don't have to select realms anymore; all of your toons regardless of realms will be shown.

[blaatschaap]

Maybe that dev is a troll and added the leather dracthyr and the alliance blood elf intentionally as a gag

[Luck4]

And with that quote dies the world revamp dream

I think due to its scope, the Revamp likelihood relies on players' desires.

I've never seen so many people on MMO Champion using this signature before, and I don't even know who made it in the first place. But I still think we need more people onboard because the World Revamp will only happen once we get enough player critical mass to push it.

Anyway, it's baffling to me that they managed to pull a World Revamp in Cataclysm nearly 15 years ago but aren't capable of doing it again... I also don't understand why they're planning to make Quel'thalas bigger instead of revamping other areas...

[Pheraz]

I think due to its scope, the Revamp likelihood relies on players' desires.

I've never seen so many people on MMO Champion using this signature before, and I don't even know who made it in the first place. But I still think we need more people onboard because the World Revamp will only happen once we get enough player critical mass to push it.

Anyway, it's baffling to me that they managed to pull a World Revamp in Cataclysm nearly 15 years ago but aren't capable of doing it again... I also don't understand why they're planning to make Quel'thalas bigger instead of revamping other areas...

Anne stickney confirmed it will receive a glow up. I guess this is what they mean with revamp.
I'm very sure they will suck all of queltalas from the outland world server into EK then and all zones will be made HD and I guess the undead will finally be gone there

[Trad skeleton]

This one?



A dev said it's just a mockup (in response to people pointing out the drac'thyr with leather armour and a dagger). The elf has fire in her hands and the vulpera hunter is wearing leather armour. So I wouldn't look into it too much.

Yeah it's this. Dracthyr aren't getting rogues despite that being level 13, in leather and with daggers at the hip. The Vulpera hunter with the goat pet and the leather armour also isn't telling. It's sadly just a random mock up where the person slapped together a bunch of random stuff.

Edit: Unless you want to be full copium and assume that these are hints for 10.2.5 10.2.7 things that they did not want to announce as expansion things so that there's still patch surprises. I don't believe this but I've seen some people have this idea.

[Selorian]

Anyway, it's baffling to me that they managed to pull a World Revamp in Cataclysm nearly 15 years ago but aren't capable of doing it again... I also don't understand why they're planning to make Quel'thalas bigger instead of revamping other areas...

The Cata revamp is/was seen as a failure. It came at a significant cost to patch content (Abyssal Maw was canceled, Dragon Soul was mostly reused assets), and this is considering that a lot of zones are just pared down versions of the original zone stories rather than actually modernized. It's not that they can't do it, it's that it's very hard to justify remaking a bunch of zones that most people will interact with once when leveling and then never again. You would need to make the entirety of the remade areas relevant in endgame, which is a pretty big ask.

What they're doing here--selecting an area of the world to revamp and modernize because they're able to create a story that utilizes this location of the world, makes a lot more sense. It means every area can get proper attention to detail without sacrificing the rest of the expansion. Could it maybe have included surrounding areas? Yeah, an updated Undercity/Gilneas would make sense, and going down as far south as Arathi would make sense (especially with us meeting Arathi in TWW), but they're choosing to focus on the elves and the conflict with the void.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah it's this. Dracthyr aren't getting rogues despite that being level 13, in leather and with daggers at the hip. The Vulpera hunter with the goat pet and the leather armour also isn't telling. It's sadly just a random mock up where the person slapped together a bunch of random stuff.

Edit: Unless you want to be full copium and assume that these are hints for 10.2.5 10.2.7 things that they did not want to announce as expansion things so that there's still patch surprises. I don't believe this but I've seen some people have this idea.

Ion literally said in the panel to not read into it and that it's just a mockup.

[Luck4]

I'm very sure they will suck all of queltalas from the outland world server into EK then and all zones will be made HD and I guess the undead will finally be gone there

I hope they manage to make something like this for most zones:





At least for Eastern Kingdoms, where Quel'thalas is located.

I mean... neither Gilneas, Arathi Highlands, nor Twilight Highlands, needs a full remake, and Stranglethorn, Silverpine Forest, and Blasted Lands are halfway through a good spot, so after a closer inspection we already see that many zones don't need a full remake.

We can only hope!

- - - Updated - - -

The Cata revamp is/was seen as a failure. It came at a significant cost to patch content (Abyssal Maw was canceled, Dragon Soul was mostly reused assets), and this is considering that a lot of zones are just pared down versions of the original zone stories rather than actually modernized. It's not that they can't do it, it's that it's very hard to justify remaking a bunch of zones that most people will interact with once when leveling and then never again. You would need to make the entirety of the remade areas relevant in endgame, which is a pretty big ask.

The reason why it failed is in your post. Cataclysm Revamp failed because instead of using these continents for the endgame, they decided to pull off new zones to be the endgame areas, which required another set of assets. In short, they tried to Revamp the Old World and, on top of that, deliver a full-fledged expansion with 5 new zones, 7 new dungeons, and 3 new raids.

It was WAY too ambitious. That's not what people on Team World Revamp are asking, though.

Back in the day, I used to say that World Quests, Rare Hunting, World Bosses, and Invasions would be epic in a Revamped Old World, but Blizzard is now delivering a feature that could surpass all these activities in the old World, which is Delves.

[Nymrohd]

There is a reason I removed the World Revamp signature myself and it is that I just don't think they will ever do it. Just like us, if they did it, they'd want to do it right and they know they simply do not have the resources to do it right because the biggest part of doing it right would be to upscale the entire world. It is fine to say that Dragon Isles are not that much smaller than Kalimdor. But they SHOULD be. And if they wanted to do a proper world revamp, that would mean at the very least doubling Kalimdor and EK. At that point you would be asking for them to create FIVE TIMES as much landmass. And don't think that doubling it would have been that much more scale (on a linear level it would be below +50%) you'd just have enough space so that Goldshire which is supposed to be a bustling town would be able to fit two more buildings. Compare it to e.g. ESO zones where each zone has 2-3 towns with at least two dozen buildings each.

But I do think they may do a visual upgrade of the old continents. Just on the level of Arathi.

[Teriz]

Tinker is not a Hero talent.

The dream is still alive @Teriz

I never doubted it. The dream will be reality soon enough, because there is no denying that there is a hole in the class lineup that only a tech class can fill.

As for the rest of the expansion's announcement, I'm quite pleased. I'm also very pleased about Dracthyr getting full dragonriding ability and a reduced cooldown for their racial. That's pretty insane, and will probably prevent them from being other classes.

P.S. Sorry to team world revamp. Congrats to team underground and team void.

[Selorian]

You ignored half of what I said--even with what they did, most of the revamped zones were basically the same as before. For them to actually be brought into whatever the expansion story is, Duskwood can't just be "Abercrombie tricks you yet again," STV can't be about killing Kurzen and Trolls and Beasts and Pirates. The revamped Cata zones were meant to be more evergreen, while the actual Cata zones were more related to Deathwing.

With Midnight, I will call right now that every single zone is going to be related to the storyline of reuniting the elves and/or fighting back the Void. It wouldn't make sense to include a zone update to the Wetlands where nothing related to the expansion is going on. More importantly, this focus lets them make the revamped Quel'thalas deeper. Rather than just 2 little zones (utterly tiny with dynamic flight), they get to be expanded so that we see more of the culture of Quel'thalas, and give parts of it the attention it deserves.

Like, we could have the Zul'Aman area expanded out to be half a zone. Are they going to ally with the void out of hatred for the elves, or decide to ally with their longstanding enemy against something that would see them all destroyed? I dunno, but with just Quel'thalas focused on we'll probably get this to play out as a significant part of a zone's storyline instead of a short quest chain. We could see the void taking control of a large portion of Silvermoon City or the area around/near it and sieging the Sunwell, while still having enough room for a non-hostile area--something like Suramar was, where half a zone is just a big city of varying levels of danger.

I've seen people say they want Gadgetzan to be more like it was portrayed in Hearthstone--that's only going to happen with these focused revamps, because otherwise it will be one little zone out of 20.

[Nymrohd]

You ignored half of what I said--even with what they did, most of the revamped zones were basically the same as before. For them to actually be brought into whatever the expansion story is, Duskwood can't just be "Abercrombie tricks you yet again," STV can't be about killing Kurzen and Trolls and Beasts and Pirates. The revamped Cata zones were meant to be more evergreen, while the actual Cata zones were more related to Deathwing.

With Midnight, I will call right now that every single zone is going to be related to the storyline of reuniting the elves and/or fighting back the Void. It wouldn't make sense to include a zone update to the Wetlands where nothing related to the expansion is going on. More importantly, this focus lets them make the revamped Quel'thalas deeper. Rather than just 2 little zones (utterly tiny with dynamic flight), they get to be expanded so that we see more of the culture of Quel'thalas, and give parts of it the attention it deserves.

Like, we could have the Zul'Aman area expanded out to be half a zone. Are they going to ally with the void out of hatred for the elves, or decide to ally with their longstanding enemy against something that would see them all destroyed? I dunno, but with just Quel'thalas focused on we'll probably get this to play out as a significant part of a zone's storyline instead of a short quest chain. We could see the void taking control of a large portion of Silvermoon City or the area around/near it and sieging the Sunwell, while still having enough room for a non-hostile area--something like Suramar was, where half a zone is just a big city of varying levels of danger.

I've seen people say they want Gadgetzan to be more like it was portrayed in Hearthstone--that's only going to happen with these focused revamps, because otherwise it will be one little zone out of 20.

I'm not ignoring it, I am just saying it will never happen because it is too much work. And if it is done in small partial revamps, then every area will be in its own storyline.
Midnight Quel'thalas WILL NOT be what Team World Revamp wants. It will be focused on the story of the expansion and it will be anything but a pristine interpretation of the area.

[Nightmare Queen]

Maybe that dev is a troll and added the leather dracthyr and the alliance blood elf intentionally as a gag

Maybe it's a hint? /jk

[Teriz]

Yeah it's this. Dracthyr aren't getting rogues despite that being level 13, in leather and with daggers at the hip. The Vulpera hunter with the goat pet and the leather armour also isn't telling. It's sadly just a random mock up where the person slapped together a bunch of random stuff.

Edit: Unless you want to be full copium and assume that these are hints for 10.2.5 10.2.7 things that they did not want to announce as expansion things so that there's still patch surprises. I don't believe this but I've seen some people have this idea.

Yup. Blizzard came out and said that there are no new dracthyr class options coming;


https://www.wowhead.com/news/dracthy...lizzard-335901

That could change in the future, but not right now. Let's hope it stays the way it is.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Sure, but why would they explicitly put a blood elf in there and tag them alliance? The only explanation I could see is a designer not familiar with WoW. Totally possible as designers often just have no clue about the context.

The person that made that picture is probably just using a design tool to put the models together. They probably have no clue that putting these earrings on that model is only possible on horde (or whatever gave it away, I wouldn't know either tbh). The leather stuff on the gekko is also just picking some models that they liked and they thought fit well with the green character model. One could probably argue that Blizzard should be in a position where everything is over-analyzed and should therefore be more carefull here, but frankly, this whole thing looks to me hastily thrown together to give us an idea what it could look like, because knowing Blizzard for 20+ years, this feature is nowhere near even alpha at this point in time. They also explicitly stated that it was just a mock up this time, so no point in over-analyzing it any more than that as well..

[pacotaco]

Quel'thalas has easy zone variety depending on how far they stretch beyond Ghostlands into the Plaguelands. They can also go full Troll Zone with the Amani, who will probably become playable. Ethereals were hinted and void worlds are easy patch bait. We haven't played with these themes in any serious way for years.

The Last Titan? Vrykul, Titan, Frost Trolls..... Earthen again........ Nerubians again........ uhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

Besides Vrykul it's going to be a lot of stuff we've already seen in the Worldsoul saga plus a retread of Dragonflight races like the Dragons and Tuskarr.

That's the trick. They can do 3 expansions in the time they usually did 2 because they tried to work clever by adding updated models of old races to last expansions and by planning the next expansions in a way they can reuse a lot of the work.

[Nymrohd]

That's the trick. They can do 3 expansions in the time they usually did 2 because they tried to work clever by adding updated models of old races to last expansions and by planning the next expansions in a way they can reuse a lot of the work.

The thing is, I used to be excited for Azjol Nerub. Now, I am not sure I see the point to it. We will have gotten the visuals and theme from Azj Kahet. So do I need Azjol Nerub? Nope. It will be fun to have but it won't be nearly as exciting.

[Annihilas]

There has never been a patch that introduced a new zone that didn't also introduce a new raid. If there is no new raid, then there is certainly going to be no new zone either.

Forbidden Reach would like to have a word with you...

[Cherry123]

so we have 4 main characters and 4 locations

AZJ-KAHET - Alleria (Void )

HALLOWFALL - Anduin (human and light)

ISLE OF DORN - Magni (dwarf style)

RINGING DEEPS - Thrall (elemental ?)

I think everyone will agree that HALLOWFALL is the most interesting location. ISLE OF DORN looks impressive but is inferior HALLOWFALL

[Annihilas]

Did you notice how Iridikron wasn't in any of the coverage?

That's because we're going to kill him in 10.3

Hmmm... Maybe that is why they are being so quiet about 10.3?